Good point Kermit, I’m with you on not having to take a losing penalty when you have only just brushed the outside of a bouy as it’s rounded.
Taking Pete’s Point of view on what other clubs do is a good idea too. Just to put those two ideas together for a minute, I read about one club on the mainland that don’t penalise the touching of distant bouys, only close ones. This is sensible as none of us have flash eyesight anymore and judging distances is hard to do.
So, to summarise, if we made a local rule that touching the outside of a distant bouy is a non-penalty, but touching say a start bouy, (that is right in front of us) would be a penalty.
How does that sound?
NB while this would work for our own sail days, it will not in the case of a next level competition, ie The upcoming Summer Series Tasmanian Championships we are hosting in March.