Building on the new, streamlined USSailing Safety Equipment Requirements, the Pacific Cup Equipment Rules provide our entrants with a straightforward set of guidelines to install baseline safety gear on their boats. Together, these documents specify a common set of items, from lifelines to liferafts, emergency signals and communications, and even a specified minimum amount of water to carry.
Over the years, developments in technology and the boats themselves have changed the rules. Sextants: no longer required. Sideband radio, now optional. Water may be carried in bottles instead of installed tanks. A few new requirements have appeared. AIS receivers, for example, help alert sailors to nearby commercial traffic.
The safety rules are designed to discourage participants from trading off safety for performance, whether by saving weight by leaving an anchor, liferaft, or storm sail behind or by avoiding the "inconvenience" of wearing flotation of having jacklines and lifelines. By setting a common level of gear across our fleets, we work to focus the competition on course selection, preparation, boat-handling, and a dose of good old fashioned luck.
The rules can be found at the 2016 Documents page.