The mini rule, which by the way I like, specifies the continuous rope, inside which must fit "the footprint".
My question, is this determined as a point, or as a tyre "patch"?
If you had the actual yacht, the rope would need to traverse around, at least, part of the tyres. Not having done this exercise, I suspect this would make quite a difference?
On the drawing board, a designer would use a point as the measuring point?
If my assumption is correct, the type of tyre being used could potentially make quite a difference, ie square profile vs round?