Thanks Jim,
I was thinking 55.3 applied but someone said "well it's about being 'sheeted through' not 'pressured by'".
Do you have an intelligent response to this I could use if the topic comes up again? Thanks again!

John rightly points out some uniqueness of sailing vs other sports.  While his observations may account for some of the differences, I don't think they are all.

Certainly, the scale of money (and therefore pressure) relating to one single point is way out of proportion.  In no other sport does one single play have that potential.  And yes, the nature of sailing means that our disputes are better sorted out after the game.  Andy's point on 'gold' rings true.

I am not sure that the 'contact' nature is necessarily relevant.  Rugby has a robust dispute resolution system and is arguably as contact as you can get.  Rugby dispute handling both on and off the team is based around respect and openness.

So, I do think that football needs to look carefully inwards.

As for the red card issue, I must be honest, I don't really understand the mechanism by which the decision was reversed.   I have read the disciplinary code and still don't really understand.  My only thought is how can there be even a pathway to such poor optics in a world sport like this.

Hmm.. 

Rob re: "were to luff sharply and hit the blue boat, the blue boat would protest under rule 16.1 and quite probably win in the protest room"

That's what I'm trying to say (in my typical awkward way) .. that a luff up breaking 16.1 would not be exonerated based upon Red's MR rights.

I'm not saying that Red is not entitled to MR .. she is. I'm arguing (for the sake of the argument ... wiling to be convinced otherwise)  that MR doesn't include luffing to HTW when that luff is not a component of a path to the mark that exists with MR. 

If I was to argue against that point I might argue the following ..

If Red luffs HTW and IF Blue passed HTW first , AND then when Red follows Red tacks such that Red is overlapped to windward of Blue as Red passes HTW (BOTH conditions required to keep MR contiguous) .. she will be the KC boat even if they are both tacking the same time, but Red's MR will change over from 18.2(a)(1) to 18.2(c) .. now being the windward/inside boat.  In that way, there is a feasible path that Red is never not entitled to MR as she tacks for the mark. 

That path though depends upon Blue passing HTW first.

Another argument against might be geometric.  Any time Red is in the 6-9 quad, when she luffs HTW she's shortening her distance to the mark (hypotenuse vs sine).  So that's "closer to" as in sailing past at some distance vs "to" the mark. 

Robert "My review of RRS 86.1(a) indicates no issues with this change."

An argument against that assertion might be that 86.1(a) forbids changes to rules of an appendix that changes Part 2 and Def's and that doing what you suggest .. in effect ... changes those Appx-rules by inserting a "however-clause" exception and then inserts the standard language.  

What I am saying is that it is more complicated than simply having a gravitational force component parallel to the local surface of the water.  Surfing, as a general phenomena, is defined and understood.  Where it isn't defined is in the RRS.  Unfortunately, this forum is not the place for the very long and very deep dive explaining the physics of surging, surfing, and planing.  But to me, the take away is that we need to understand the difference between surging, planing, and surfing and when each of these is possible to be able to properly interpret and apply RRS 42.