Personnel & Role Descriptions

1. For running a national championship it is worth while to organize an assistant chief measurer who knows as much about measuring as you. Everyone deserves a break away from the inspection area and it also gives you the opportunity to discuss a point of contention if the Laser Class Chief measurer cannot be contacted.
2. If you expect more than 50 - 60 boats per day of inspection plan on having 2 inspection teams, both with a full set of jigs and templates and additional set of stamps and stamp pads. From a competitor’s point of view, spending 3 hours in a queue to be inspected is very annoying. It should take 5 minutes to completely inspect a Laser.
3. Give a number to each sailor starting at 1, use that number on all identified equipment you will stamp and sign. This number can also be use by the organisers for numbering trolleys, meal ticket, etc.

Measurement location

• Ideally an undercover area should be used, where both the measuring teams and those waiting to be measured are under cover. Boats should be able to approach from one direction and then continue to move off without interfering with boats already in line. An undercover car park, walkways beside the club or the undercover boat storage area can all be considered as good locations.

Handling Paper Work

• It is suggested that each competitor is assigned an inspection sheet (see the Laser Championship Measurement and Inspection Form), prior to the regatta the competitors name and sail number are recorded on the sheet and the sheets are filed alphabetically or national letter if it is an international event. When a competitor is about to be measured, the form is retrieved marked off and re-filed.

• When a competitor does a late entry, a new sheet can be started and then filed in the correct location.

• The regatta chairman should be made aware of all boats with advertising particularly if there is a potential conflict with official sponsors of the regatta. (check any conflict with ISAF advertising regulations)

• The person entering the competitors’ data should be made aware of all requests to sail with alternate sail numbers, so that any potential problems with missing bow numbers, does not result in a boat not being able to be identified.

Failed Equipment

• Depending on the level of the championship you have to use your discretion or not. It is not the same approach for a local event than a national event, a regional or world event. Although technically fails equipment inspection should be corrected or should not be used in competition, sometimes a value judgement can be made which allows competitors to compete with this equipment and this could apply at local event. One example is a person showing up in an old boat, likely to be a local who is unlikely to be competitive, with a boom that has fittings that have been moved because of corrosion and are no longer in the correct position. A bit of discretion may save you from being more unpopular than required. 

• When it comes to using your discretion, the most important consideration is whether the competitor will gain an advantage from using equipment that is illegal, over other competitors. If they gain an advantage the equipment should not be passed. An example is with sail numbers, if a competitor sail numbers are not within the prescribed tolerance, the measurer should ask themselves, is the sail number clearly visible and roughly in the right place? Yes, pass it. No, the competitor has deliberately moved the numbers, as close to possible to each other and the leach of the sail, so they cannot be detected over the starting line, it fails and the numbers should be moved. Once again, this should apply to local events and make it educational and understandable to the sailor that he must fix it if he goes to a national regatta and for the next regatta.

• If you do fail some equipment, make suggestions to the competitor on their best option on how to fix it. In some cases it may be an idea for you to fix it for the competitor.

• If a piece of equipment is waived through, the competitor should have the problem clearly explained to them. They then should be informed how to correct the problem and that piece of equipment should be corrected before the next regatta they attend. Ideally in a case like this, they should just go and correct, before using the equipment in the regatta they are being measured for. You can apply this to local events only.

Notes on the Measurement and Inspection Form

• All items on the measurement and inspection form should be checked. However, the number of inspection personnel and number of competitors may restrict you to a more "lesser" check. ILCA strongly recommend doing as complete a check as possible.

• Cheating is an issue that the ILCA takes very seriously. Not everything a competitor does to their boat should be considered cheating, but competitors may do certain changes to their boat, without knowing it’s illegal. In case of serious cheating, please explain it on the measurer report form you will address to the ILCA chief Measurer.