Important Notes for 2011 Revalidation

Attention is drawn to: rules 22.2.2 (standard furniture removal) and 21.2 (rig/sail features).  Any declarations should be made on the revalidation form or on a separate sheet/e-mail. 

If your boat is rated with default sized mainsail widths (MUW, MTW, MHW) we strongly recommend that these are checked and advised at the time of revalidation in the Changes box. See Rule 21.5.4 regarding minimum sizes.

If you are a new owner, please check the last valid certificate carefully, since you are now responsible for the accuracy of the data and information.  Check particularly specific items like the sail configuration, internal ballast, stored power etc. to ensure the boat is still in the same configuration. 

Remember that if your last certificate was Endorsed and you wish to retain this, any change to data must be officially measured or weighed; or in the case of sails, verified by the sailmaker. 

Please note that the Rating Authority reserves the right to request photographs or drawings if necessary.

If there are any changes to the hull, keel or rudder, we will require photographs or drawings so please send these with your application to save time.

REVALIDATION QUESTIONS if your boat was last rated in 2009 – Notes for questions:

2. Stored power was not previously taken into account for halyards. Rule 14.2 has been altered so that ONLY mainsail halyards are excluded.  Therefore if you use stored power to hoist headsails or spinnakers this must be declared.   The rating now differentiates between powered backstays only, and other powered running rigging. 

3. There has been some confusion over whether whisker pole has to be declared or not.   Rule 21.3.4 has been made clearer and we need to know whether you use a whisker pole to pole out a headsail ONLY (ie. not a spinnaker).   

4.  Keel fin material options have been expanded on the new application form and this question is to ensure your certificate is correct.  The relevant IRC Rule is 19.2:

Any keel fin fairings with a nominal density, including any cavities and/or core material, significantly lower than the main structural elements of the keel fin shall be declared. For the purpose of this rule, a keel fin fairing does not include surface fairing, filling and painting materials up to a total thickness of 10 mm, measured normal to the local surface of the keel fin.

5.  Hull hollows 

Certificate Processing Time

The following was published in the RORC Rating Office newsletter 1^st June 2010. 

Certificate processing times – help us to help you!

The Rating Office recognises that it is here as a service to yacht owners, and others involved in yacht racing, and we pride ourselves on getting boats on to the start-line of their race or event with a correct, valid rating certificate.  Each year, we process around 6500 certificates for 4600 boats in 25 countries, so as you can imagine things get a little hectic at peak times!

Our application forms generally state ‘allow 28 days for processing’, although it is rare for it to take this long unless an application gets held up with queries (see below).  From the start of revalidation in January through to August, processing of certificates takes between 2 and 3 weeks, with our aim being 2 weeks, ie. 10 working days.  

The reason certificates cannot be issued with a quicker turnaround is down to the volume of applications, e-mails and phone calls we receive during these months of the year; as well as checking and inputting any new data supplied, and the annual ‘housekeeping’ we have to do on each application to make sure any new standard data or generic input changes have been applied.

In the majority of cases, a 2 week turnaround is just fine; but as you are probably aware, we do offer a ‘fast track’ service with the Expedited Processing Fee, which doubles the normal application fee and guarantees processing within 5 working days.   However, requests to issue a certificate by return, without good reason, is not fair on owners who applied in good time and get pushed back down the list; it also increases the risk of omissions or errors being made on certificates.

As your Rule Authority, we here to help, so if you have a technical or administrative query, or are in doubt about anything, please just ask!