Mark,

You do have a point about the Portsmouth rating and I can see how that might generate a little confusion. However, examining the "chicken or the egg" scenario with a boat class and a portsmouth rating, the boat class certainly comes first. By that I mean, it's up to the Portsmouth committee to dish out the ratings and if there is a boat like this within a class that has some clear distinction of difference and the potential to negatively affect the portsmouth rating, a different rating will be created to isolate the issue. Portsmouth ratings are here to support boat classes - not the other way around.

USPN can most certainly regulate these issues - there have been considerable accomodations made for the F16 class to combine the uni and double handed ratings at the request of the class (because, based on the present data, combining of them did not present an advantage for the single handed version).