I take that as soon as you loose sight of as much surface that you can longer navigate visually, your are then IFR
No. You have to be in sight of the surface, and that's it. If there's a miniscule gap in the clouds and you can see the ground through the gap, then, according to the letter of the law, that's ok.
A subject which comes up frequently is the difference between "safe" and "legal". Flying in these conditions, although legal, is quite clearly not safe if you haven't had training in the appropriate methods of navigation (and we won't even bother to ask how you managed to get there, or how you plan to get back to the ground). We're lucky to enjoy an activity where the law so often leaves it to our own discretion to decide what's safe, rather than legislating it for us.
FFF
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