Sail Royalty Payment Collection Process - Effective January 1, 2018

Started by Ed "Buttons" Padin, Class Administrator, November 06, 2017, 12:19:28 PM

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Ed "Buttons" Padin, Class Administrator

The Viper 640 Class Rule 7.8.1 Sail Purchase stipulates that each boat may purchase one set of new sails each calendar year (main, jib, and spinnaker) with date of first use setting the year. Further, Rule 7.8.2 Registration says that those sails must be registered with the Class accompanied by a royalty fee payment currently set at $50 per new sail. These royalty fees are critical to the Class' operating budget. Until now, it has been up to owners to proactively register their sails with the Class' Technical Committee or Class Administrator.

An issue the Class has faced is that some owners purchase new sails yet never register them with the Class and, accordingly, they never pay the royalty fees. This, in turn, limits the Class' operating budget and ability to support those owners. The Technical Committee has recommended, and the International Board has agreed, that the International Viper 640 Class will implement a new sailmaker-centric sail royalty payment collection process similar to that of many other classes. With this new process, the sailmaker will put a new Sail Royalty Payment Sticker on the sail before delivery to the owner and include the $50 royalty payment in the cost of the sail. The owner will then notify the Class of the new sails and their date of first use, and the Class will send to the owner the current Class registration sticker at no additional cost.

1.   Effective with any Viper 640 sail sold by a Class approved sailmaker on or after January 1, 2018, there will need to be two stickers on each sail whenever raced: a. One a royalty payment sticker sewn onto the sail by the sailmaker before delivery to the customer, and b.   a separate Class registration sticker (year of first use) issued by either the Technical Committee or the Class Administrator. These will be the current red, rectangular "sail buttons" used in past years. This sticker gets applied to sail by the owner.

2.   The royalty payment sticker will still cost $50 but will now be charged to the purchaser by the sailmaker as part of the sail purchase invoice. That fee will then be remitted directly to the Class by the sailmaker with appropriate owner sales records provided. Each Class approved sailmaker will work directly with the Class Administrator to execute this process.
Ed "Buttons" Padin
Viper 640 Class Administrator
erpadin [at] padesta [dot] com

Darren Gilbert

Is there a cost for the Class Registration sticker in addition to the cost of the Royalty Payment sticker?
Formerly Black Sheep (#29), Black Sheep II (#194) and Black Sheep III (#106)

Dave Nickerson

If there is a royalty payment sticker sewn on the sail, the Class registration stickers are free.

We realize there will be a transition period.  Some folks will have bought sails in 2017 (without the royalty sticker applied by the sailmaker - that starts Jan 1), so those sails if first used in 2018 will require the usual payment for the registration sticker.  After a year, this issue should go away and all registration stickers would be free.
Viper #208 - Noank, CT