78 One-Design Class Sailboat Handbook 



Cruising Club Rule takes into consideration length, displacement, sail 

 area, draft, freeboard, beam and finally, stability. In the Cruising Club 

 Rule direct recognition is given to each of these factors. In the other 

 rules some of these factors are recognized only directly. Nevertheless, all 

 factors are taken into account in the rules to some extent. In the Cruising 

 Club Rule in particular an effort is made to evaluate the effect of each 

 of the factors on the speed of a given boat. This is not the case in the 

 Universal Rule or the International Rule, in which the penalties for 

 exceeding one or more limits are so great that the limits for one or more 

 measurements are rarely exceeded. The measurements so limited in one 

 or the other of the two rules include displacement, draft, freeboard and 

 beam. In the latter two rules, in effect, the provisions of the rules design 

 the boat, leaving very little latitude for the preference of an owner or 

 a designer. 



So the difference between the concept of the Cruising Club Rule and 

 that of the Universal and International Rules is that the Cruising Club 

 Rule attempts to cover a wide range of yachts without restricting the 

 designs and thereby permits many different designs to compete under it. 

 With this desirable freedom from design restrictions and the resultant 

 challenge to ingenuity and progress of design by boat owners and de- 

 signers, the Cruising Club Rule may have to be changed from time to 

 time to meet new conditions and developments created by competitive 

 yachtsmen arid their designers. CCA. Ratings are given for the more 

 popular one-design racing-cruising boats described in Chapter 7. 



DISTANCE RACING 



Distance racing— often called ocean racing— generally takes place over 

 courses of varying lengths, raced by cruising-racing craft under some type 

 of handicap system. Such events may be one-day affairs, overnighter or 

 rendezvous races; or may occupy several days and involve great distances 

 such as Newport to Bermuda. The sport of distant or ocean racing is quite 

 different when compared to one-design racing described in Chapter 4 

 since the result does not depend solely on speed. Navigation plays an 

 important part in it, for the fastest craft, if it made a bad landfall, might 

 finish among the "also rans." The navigator is therefore perhaps the most 



