Equip the fleet with LiDAR
Problem solved!

Except then the fleet would realize they could replace the judges with Claude. 

That was a joke……. Or was it?

I see the dropbox in the form for "AI Involvement" now and hadn't noticed it earlier.  Thanks for pointing it out!

See discussion above.

Hitting an anchored boat may found a claim for damages, but does not break any IRPCAS rule.

Hitting a dock or pier, the same.

Clearly placed there by a trimmer trying to share the guilt! ;0))

Thanks very much John. I appreciate your efforts in replying in so much detail.

Our annual program includes a Pointscore Series (Pursuit format; scratch -> biased towards slower boats) run every fortnight ( 15 races per season), Championship (Yardsticks; 2 races each day; 14 per season) and Sprints (Yardstick, 3-5 races per day; 24 say races per season) => run in turn every other week.  (so C-P-S-P each month).
 
We'll be running our annual October Regatta (6 Divisions) , Hobie States, Spiral Nationals + the International Canoe World Titles this year so we'll be busy, and having lots of fun and enjoyable times out on the Bay!

As Race Secretary I want to apply a common entrant list and a common set of rules for our club races. (KISS).  We are transitioning from a Cox-Sprague system to low-point (Sailres) next season. We have a meeting next week to decide on the rules.

After much research and simulations and yours, and others kind feedback, my preferred approach is DNC= Starters+4. I thinks the committee could settle on DNC = [12] which is starters + 4 for our average fleet size of 8-10. There is a group who want to keep the regatta approach of Entrants + 1.
 
We'll see who 'wins' the debate. Interesting Times (pun intended)! 

Cheers and Thanks again for all the great feedback. 
PS many clubs face similar issues and so it is worth discussing it here.