Hello Mikle, actually epicure is one of the most ethic player here so i can understand why he feel singled out for no specific reason.
We all learned how to play by VR particular rules and sometime awkard stuff.. such as weird rule 18 or proper course, and nothing is written anywhere and VR changes stuff as they please without telling anything to anyone, without caring for anyone, for better or for worst. ( history show it is often for the worst unfortunatly... )
now the stuff you feel is not right, is actually one of the thing i currently like the most in VRI, with a money time atmosphere at the end of the challenge where you are given one extra chance to improve your result. And allow to compensate for the randomness and erratic player behavior, pirate, fake penalty. I am sure you will soon also see this as a real feature of the game.
Especially when you encouter pirates around, such as the fucker that found funny to impersonate my boat and mess around, or the few others that raided the races as boatxxx to target players. These are really improper behavior. ( Not saying it is you )
Indeed you should really start with an official boat because there is a ranking based on sum of every challenge ( the elo ranking you see is just a sick joke... )
this is the VR/SSL official ranking www.www.virtualstarsailors.com/ranking/regular , it is currently waiting for VR to update. I fear VR grew a melonhead since they got wolrdsailing blessing unfortunatly, so i only have mild hopes here but they will get their senses eventually.
Anyway, lets settle down here and enjoy sailing.
peace.