Usually these program's rules seem very tedious and restrictive and I can easily see one person looking at this and think they are in place to stifle innovation and keep the little guy out.
I remember how he said to not have regulatory approval because of of this or that, but why not get a regulatory expert to have a look, might not approve your vessel but might show clearly missed safety critical blindspots.
But these rules exist for a reason, they where usually written in blood, it's how I know this incident added rules to your SUBSAFE program.