Around 3 AGM’s ago I recall a discussion that ISAF was going to certify our sailmakers so that we, the owners, did not have to go to the fag of measuring in new sails each time we buy some….
I was gazing (longingly) at a new P&B spinnaker yesterday and noticed that it had two labels on it. It was of course proudly bearing the P&B logo, but at the head was a little ISAF label. It said “ISAF In House Certification” and bears a 5 digit serial number. It was also signed and dated by, I guess, the sailmaker.
Perhaps someone from P&B can leave a little explanation as to how all this works in the comments section for this blog item??
Well, this is brilliant news!! It might put a glum face on our Club Fleet Measurer who will no longer have that huge fee income – albeit terrifyingly liquid as a rule!! This is a great step forward and presumably someone somewhere is watching the number of suits per year and all that??
I assume it means a little ISAF fee on each sail too – in lieu of liquid fees to the Vice Commodore of Measuring. If I recall correctly, the Dragons also somehow filter some of that ISAF fee back to Class Associations as a little bit of income. That really focusses the mind – I have long believed the correct way to describe the BIFFA ‘mission’ is to say Get More People Sailing Flying Fifteens More Often. So the more we sail our boats, the more sails we consume, and the more association income increases. A lovely little virtuous circle….
The Flying Fifteen Blog 
Personally as a Measurer I have never charged a fellow ff owner for measuring a sail. In this I have only ever followed the late Tony Lee’s lead, I may have benefitted from the odd pint in the bar however.
Interestingly despite the new IHC system the RYA have been encouraging us to get all our measures trained to the ISAF standard, one asks why as the teaching is a little inconsistent (a cople of sail makers tell me). This appears to be a money generating exercise for the RYA, now to get money into the class we perhaps need to go to he sail button system that GP’s and Corks or even dragons use. We also need to ensure that we stick to the one suit per year rule and measures need to be the final arbiter in this matter, also who checks that the sails comply with the rules in this case I think we need to do spot checks aspt championships.