The Equipment Audit forms provided on the Australian Sailing website should not be altered.

Any audit form which is downloaded from the Australian Sailing Resources page is a locked form not to be edited or modified without explicit permission of Australian Sailing. These forms are updated by Australian Sailing as required to ensure the available forms always include any alterations to the current revision of the Australian Sailing Special Regulations.

There have been incidences where the organising authority has decided to modify the forms. They have either added and or removed items to create a new form which is no longer compliant with the rules or procedures of Australian Sailing. The main problems which arise from this practice are.

• The insurance cover for the auditor may be put in jeopardy in the event of an incident.
• The initial form used by the OA may have been altered by Australian Sailing because of amendments to the Special Regulations. 

The advice from Australian Sailing to the person in charge of the yacht and the accredited equipment auditors is to not complete or sign an altered form.

Where an OA believes a race is for example Category 3 “an offshore race across open water, most of which is relatively protected or close to shorelines”, this is the form that should be used. If there is concern about weather conditions and/or the potential that the yachts could be isolated from suitable search and rescue apparatus in an emergency, the safety of the boats and crews should be considered first. The best solution is to change category for the race to a higher level. Alternatively, the OA can decide to require additional items out of the higher safety categories, in this case it is up to the OA to create an addendum form covering the additional items boats are required to carry. Under no circumstances is it acceptable to drop items from the selected safety category.

The Audit Forms can be found on the Equipment Auditing page of our Safety Hub.
To become an Equipment Auditor, start with the online course here.

By Chris Zonca