You also said the "serious" frankenboat sailor would make sure their cert was up to date and accurate, which doesn't really apply here either. The teams in question in this thread are being accused of cheating (not claiming the mods that apply to their rig) and a measurement system aint going to fix that.
Carlson ran a Catnip rating with carbon rudders, daggers, A-cat carbon mast and spin, only taking a hit for the spin. That's not very sportsman I think. That is a call-out to the polka-dot.
Translation.... Catnip.... Old heavy A class that Dave has modified... LEGAL
Carbon Rudders... LEGAL (not regulated in Portsmouth)
A-cat carbon mast.... A catnip is an A Cat.... Length and type of mast... not an issue for A cats... LEGAL
spin, only taking a hit for the spin LEGAL
All of that is LEGAL
Now... the problem is that the last time a catnip raced in a legit portsmouth race may be 15 years ago. Do you think the A cat rating from 15 years ago was... is "accurate".... The Portsmouth system has FAILED.
Calling Dave Carlson Unsportsmanlike or "cheating".... Ignorant at best!
By definition (in my opinion) handicap racing regardless of the system used is flawed and unfair in one way or another to someone and there is simply no way around this very glaring truth. Didn't Carnac use a measurement based system?
Flawed and unfair....
Flawed.... what do you mean?
The rating table is not accurate? the rating table is not precise enough? the rating table was generated using bogus data? the rating formula uses the wrong constants?
Unfair.... again... what do you mean?
Look.... if two IDENTICAL ONE DESIGN BOATS finish a race overlapped... guess what... the most perfect and the fairest handicap system in the world would still score the two boats as TIED.
If what you want to say is that handicap racing is not as precise as the One design racing.... TRUE.... and .... so what?
