An incident that made this all much clearer to me took place in the Solent.
As a puddle sailor it looked pretty odd to me but my tidal umpires where clear about penalising Blue in this situation.

John re: "This was an uncomfortable protest"

Oh ... I had missed that.  So what you posted is from a document produced for a specific circumstance ... and not a generalized template you were suggesting. 

My comment was based on it being a general-use template.  - Ang

Poul, at position 5, there is still plenty of room between Y and the mark. It is after position 5 that Y is no longer giving room, and indeed, she does not need to because the boats are now on opposite tacks on a beat to windward, and 18 does not apply... but 13 does.

The question of One Design or handicap rules is recurrent. In One Design racing an ILCA must only use ILCA official sails. However, in many handicap fleets, so-called 'training sails' (not ILCA official) are allowed/tolerated. One way of doing this is to allot to ILCAs not using official sails a handicap as an ILCA-type boat that is the same as the equivalent ILCA.
Older readers will relace ILCA by Laser!

This format is slightly better than before. It used to be in-person and was required for re-accreditation, and seemed to be all about taking money from the volunteers who actually run and judge races.  You had to pay to attend, and typically had to pay for a hotel too.  At least this is more accessible.  Why it's charged for, I still don't understand.  The RYA should support race officials, not charge them to be able to volunteer.