The subject provisions determine that ‘freely’ (not a defined term) is to be used the same as ‘free’ – which in fact is usually quite a separate word and in itself emphasis ‘costlessness’ (the former word usage does not necessarily do so)
1. As a racing boat owner, for example, we: before a race, with (boat & crew) safety in mind, use ‘PredictWind’ and it’s weather-course modelling function (a freely available but subscription product), but once racing switch to ‘Windy’ and ‘Windguru’ (free versions); and we would use (subscription) PredictWind often right up to the time-day of registration & skippers briefing but before the given race start - preparatory signal given (which time we deem to be competing but not racing (?)), thereafter we switch to free products for the entire race. Is this a valid interpretation?
2. Assuming the above to be the case, is this RRS 41 provision really viable for the future (and also considering safety obligations and ‘duty of care’ like legislations etc) – an example of this is: on our youth racing boat we have recently ordered a (subscription) PredicWind AI DataHub® (a powerful modelling tool for a given boat – progressively ‘learning’ the boat at hand and to provide greater safety)?
Question 1: seems like with what we are actually doing, with our youth team approach, we are just on the 'right side of the law' so to speak (with the current Rule & Case).
Question 2: given safety etc concerns, and positive technology advancements, would it not better in the future to substitue 'freely' with 'publically' available ('for open water or offshore ocean racing, publically and readily available in the marketplace or such like (ie not custom platforms))?
The cut off is the preparatory signal, when you start racing.