Daft question but I couldn’t find anything in the rules… do sail numbers have to be black? I was hoping to use red… 

You can use most colours for numbers on your sails. Red is fine. However, the class insignia in our case must be black in colour.

Skippers who have won certain regattas are allowed to display other coloured class insignia on their sails, as demonstrated in the diagram below. 
 

Regards

JT

 

Edited March 28, 2025Mar 28 by John Taylor

Thanks JT! 

Sail number standards aren't in the class rules, they are defined in the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) Appendix G and are amended for radio sailing in Appendix E 

Apologies for not taking the time to research myself lol, but do any classes have rules for the 'style' on numbering? I.e. 5s and 2s having curves to them.

Consider "55" in digits with right angle corners, and the same by "22"..... Obviously its dictated which side has the number placed higher, but people on finishing lines in the heat of the moment need every help in getting the job instinctively done right.

Heights and sizes may be stipulated, but what about 'shape'?

Edited March 29, 2025Mar 29 by Colin Helliwell

The IRSA  International classes, IOM, M, 10R updated their class rules about 2 years ago to use the IRSA Supplementary Class Rules for sail numbering. This was done as there was an ambiguity in the Appendix E8/G wording that could be interpreted to require country code on jibs. The IRSA version clearly stated that country code was only on main sail. The IRSA lobbied World Sailing to fix the issue in the RRS Appendix E8/G by adopting the IRSA version. We were successful and now the new 2025-2028 RRS has fixed the issue by adopting the IRSA wording - so now the classes could remove that recent change and revert to the RRS version.

As to letter type the IRSA supplementary version (still in use by the ICAs) says

C.11.2 National letters and sail numbers shall be in capital letters and Arabic numerals, clearly legible and of the same colour. The colour shall contrast with the colour of the body of sail. Commercially available typefaces giving the same or better legibility than Helvetica are acceptable. Digital fonts are not acceptable.

Not sure what the reference to digital fonts is as just about all the fonts are available digitally - but common sense says none of the gimmicky fonts.

The RRS appendix E8 says (and is the same as the above)

G1.4 Specifications(a) National letters and sail numbers shall be in capital letters and Arabic numerals, clearly legible and of the same colour. The colour shall contrast with the colour of the body of the sail. Commercially available typefaces giving the same or better legibility than Helvetica are acceptable. Digital fonts are not acceptable.

Other classes may specify sail numbering standards in their class rules, but a class following the Appendix E8/G should be quite acceptable.

John
 

Edited March 29, 2025Mar 29 by John Ball
added comment

Topical topic this.

At an event this last weekend where I was RO I noticed that red numbers on white mylar or scrim sails are far more difficult to see at a distance than black, despite being clearly legible in closer quarters.    

So while they pass the test of being "contrasting" they really can be a problem in the real world.   This may be to your advantage or disadvantage I guess   

14 minutes ago, Wayne Stobbs said:

Topical topic this.

At an event this last weekend where I was RO I noticed that red numbers on white mylar or scrim sails are far more difficult to see at a distance than black, despite being clearly legible in closer quarters.    

So while they pass the test of being "contrasting" they really can be a problem in the real world.   This may be to your advantage or disadvantage I guess   

And at least one was 'outline' red. Certainly not to the advantage of the event crew.

Colour Vision should be considered - Red and Green are not universally good contrast for those with 'Colour Blindness'

As a follow on from this I built a set of ‘clear’ film sails last year. Never mind the number problem at over 20mtrs I couldn’t even see the rig!   

 

8 hours ago, Barry Watkin said:

 

Now just using the jib!

Edited April 10, 2025Apr 10 by Barry Watkin
Doubled up in error

On 10/04/2025 at 13:56, Barry Watkin said:

As a follow on from this I built a set of ‘clear’ film sails last year. Never mind the number problem at over 20mtrs I couldn’t even see the rig!   

 

I was thinking similar about the Polish chap at the Europeans with the black sails..... 

On 08/04/2025 at 22:41, David Lapes said:

Colour Vision should be considered - Red and Green are not universally good contrast for those with 'Colour Blindness'

Being one of those people, yellow is always a good colour for me in general.

 

Not for your sail numbers though...

Is there a updated document that shows the size and location of the sail numbers and national letters, I have a copy of Marcus Wahlin 2012, is this an offical document?

IOM Sail Marking.V1.2_03.21.pdf

Hope this has worked, the pdf is from the UK IOM web site you can find it on the MYA main site under the IOM class.

Thanks Eric.