Continuation from the Shellsport Saloons thread. Suggest you read the latter stages of that thread first.

To summarise. Long term projects have been caught in a trap where cages built to the previous rules (main hoop metal spec has changed) but hadn't had the paperwork completed, can't get the cage passed without an engineer's report., This is required because the cage is deemed a "free design" and therefore has to conform to tests laid down by MSNZ. These tests dictate the amount of deflection given a specific force and at a specifc angle.

A newly built cage to the current specs and to an approved design will be rubber stamped within days. However, this approved spec would fail all the deflection tests.

So those trapped with longer term projects are faced with a cage that may be identical to 100's of existing, approved cages, but they are sidelined without stripping out the existing cage and replacing the main hoop, or, have built cages that are much stronger than the approved cages, but they can't get them passed.