If technology exists then we should use it!  It's not going away.

However, we should fully understand/educate users and build it in properly to our process. (Doc's question...John Ferris' guide.)

A simple example of understanding is the accuracy/confidence level.  1-meter accuracy (95% confidence) means the distance between the 2 units may be 1.4 meters wrong.  For Optimists this is more than half a boat length.   The tracking software might say the boats are 2 meters apart, but mathematically, the actual gap could be anywhere from 0.6 meters to 3.4 meters.   

This is not accurate enough for some rules scenarios.

(I have an example of a protest where the tracker (normal GPS) did not show the Optimist tacked and the protestee used that as a basis of a very compelling defence.  However, Jury had a video which clearly did show the tack, and was able to make the correct decision.  Had the jury relied on the tracker, the decision would have been wrong.)

Perhaps WS should be publishing guidance / limitations of use of digital evidence.  Put it in the judges manual perhaps.  With a list of tested systems even.

(See the PDF as an example.)

In answer to Doc's question then... 

As for the hearing process, RRS 63.4(b) allows the protest committee to take 'any other evidence it considers necessary'.  This opens the door to evidence not supplied by the parties. In which case, I don't see anything wrong with PC having access to tracker data - so long as they understand the limitations of them.  e.g. If the tracker is not on the white-list, then accuracy must be presumed to be X. 

The interjection at that early point might save a whole load of questions and witnesses and thus time.

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.

Looks like several scoring systems allow for it.  You will find the instructions for how to do it on RacingRulesOfSailing.org here.

This may be relevant =>>>   https://www.racingrulesofsailing.org/posts/5752-minutes-advantage-formula-for-pursuit-races-based-on-phpf-hcp

Yup, Case 67 settles this explicitly in a W/L collision causing damage to a non-racing boat, it does not explicitly deal with the amount of damage caused being a conflict since in this case the rule 69 implications removes that discission.  I can't find a case where monetary damages were seen as a conflict of interest in the way it's implied in this discussion.  But the definitions are poor for several things including "damage" vs "major damage", and major damage isn't even a requirement, only that it may have caused major damage. so there is always room for interpretation.