comments interspersed ...

"The_navigator©" wrote in message
...
You still miss the point. Colregs apply to all vessels on the water. A
kite surfer can carry you from one place to another and is therefore a
vessel. As a vessel it is not powered by machinery or oars and is
therefore a sailing vessel or NUC.

That doesn't follow. There's no requirement that it fits into a category. In fact, there
is no mention of vessels under oars,except to say they can use the same lights as a
sailboat, but can also simply have a flashlight.

As the kite fits the definaition of a
sail I say it is a sailing vessel.

I tend to agree. As for the claim that they fall into a "grey area" that "must" be
clarified, there are numerous grey areas that the IMO is quite happy to leave unresolved.
Many states in the US give rowboats right-of-way in inland lakes, but they have no such
privilege in ColRegs water.

I suppose the powers-that-be could clear this up be saying the kite-surfers are sailboats
and thus have the same status as windsurfers, or maybe they'll say no, they're different.
But in the meantime, they act like sailboats, and so should be treated the same.

BTW, between kite surfers, they use the sail boat rules.

Since they are not showing the day
shapes for NUC my logic prevails and they are a sailing vessel.

This makes no sense. Or are you claiming that "no under command" is their natural state?
You could make a better case that they should be RAMs.