The following matters connected with measurements are contained in Rule 3, and should be remembered:—
Notches cut away from the fair-line of the stem or stern post are not allowed for when the rating length is measured.
The segmental area bounded by the bent yard of a lug or other sail, and its chord, is included in the sail-area.
If the length of the spinnaker boom when shipped in its place square to the keel, and measured from its outer end to the fore-and-aft line of the mast, be greater than the base of the yacht's fore-triangle, it is substituted therefor in calculating the taxed area of head-sails.
The perpendicular for same triangle has already been referred to.
A measurer should send his measurements to the secretary, Y.R.A., by the first post in order that the owner may receive his yacht's certificate of rating as soon as possible.
At present the regulations on measurements are divided, some being placed in Rule 3, and some in the printed instructions to measurers. It would be far better to combine them into one appendix, which measurers, builders, designers, and owners alike could then refer to, and note precisely how matters should be arranged. Rule 3 should simply describe the rule for rating racing yachts and the Y.R.A. certificate of rating.
The remarks on the Y.R.A. rules end here, but the writer has been requested to include in this chapter a short examination of the various Rating Rules of different nationalities.
PART II. THE RATING RULES
Extract from Letter to the Field in 1892.—'With shame I confess that the problems and calculations, the combinations of straight and crooked lines, with large and small numerals and Latin and Greek letters, the mathematical contortions and algebraic hieroglyphics ... are meaningless to my uncultured eyes. They are fascinating; I admire their beauty, and can well understand that inventing rules for rating must be a most charming pursuit for intellectual yachtsmen....