The plan to get the NMBR system accepted.

The first conclusions by some reviewers (independent from my person) are that the NMBR system, in its current stage, appears to produce more balanced scores and put crews of assumed equal ability closer to together. One comment was that it actually looks pretty good. I'm quite contend with that.

But this puts us to the next level.

There are two things that need to be done :

-1- additional testing on real life race results and possible tweak the system a little here and there for extra accuracy

-2- Start up a program to contact all the rating committees and get the system accepted.


Point 1 and point 2 can be executed simultaniously as more and more signs are coming in that NMBR is producing better results than its alternatives. So additional accuracy is welcomed but not necessary. Also the largest gains of NMBR are to be found in its ease of use. It involves much less work than a yardstick system. For the ISAF/Texel corner the NMBR system solves a few claring issues and produces much more realistic results for the same effort in maintaining it as the ISAF/Texel systems currently in used. Also it is more flexible as it can produce custom ratings for one-way handicapped races etc.

Right now, I'm working out a plan to tweak the system further; I'm in contact with a US party for that.

With regard to acceptance I propose to go about it in the following way.

-1- Consolidate contacts with the USPN committee. Right now they are the party to most benefit from it and it will allow them to offer a remedy to RC considering breaking away from USPN in favour of Texel like rumour has that Tybee 500 is considering. In short the time appears to be right to expose the USPN to an alternative.

-2- Next step will be to contact ISAF as I know they are looking to improof on their system for several years now. Not much is happening so I think they are at a dead lock. The medicine might well be to expose them to a fully operational system that US parties have tested for improved accuracy. Simply put we can use the US to break open the possible deadlock inside the ISAF committee. Afterall, ISAF would like to see a single system around the world and the US is very much an sizeable and important block in that. Also this is the most effective way for US sailors to influence ISAF into a system with wind dependent handicaps etc. In short to make them accept some of your wishes/demands. Of course ISAF is looking to stuff Texel as the more dominant system. So the US is the juicy bone and having a noticeably better system is the rewards for ALL OF US.

-3- Of course if USPN and ISAF go like domino's than we can really put some pressure on the Texel system and most likely get them to accept to NMBR system in it total without counter demands. I think I have the inroads to that already. I hope my former collegues at the Texel system will forgive me for this but the current make-up of the committee is in need of a make-over and nearly all parties cooperating with the Texel committee adhere to that view. So in short is the old committee holds out despite convincing arguments then I will contact the parties using the system directly and pry them of Texel that way. It will be their call to decide to co-opt or be made disfunct.

-4- Yardstick systems in general. Well Yarstick in the UK is already losing to ISAF at this moment. The transition is slow because of the large and known issues in ISAF. With NMBR these are as good as solved and so further resistance will be solely based on emotion and not on verifiable concerns. Asia, africa, and south america are largely to small to maintain their own independent yardstick systems. Alot of them already use ISAF or TEXEL because that is much easier for them, when the US and the EU are on the same line regarding a handicap system then surely they will all transition to that system over time as well.

-5- Australia and New Zealand. This will be tricky as these scenes tend to be very independedly minded. However right now several yardstick systems are still competing with eachother also the dominant VYC suffers from all the issues linked to yardstick systems and uses on 1 rating number for all conditions. Arguably for them a large improvement can be gained by using NMBR. The largest of all. It will probably take some massaging but also when US and EU are in agreement than such a thing must go a long way in presuading the Aussies.


As you can see ; USPN and it committee play an important role in all this. They are the first step and those are always very important. However I do plan to be in contact with several parties simultaniously.

I'm expecting a list of demands from several parties (or should I say whigs) however I will not accept any demand that are different from a general wishes regarding the use, shape or accuracy of the NMBR system.

Simple reason being that I see no point in sacrificing ease of use and accuracy simply because a whig wants to boast that he influences the development of the NMBR system.

I will give an example ; a party can demand that a rating should be adjusted when a carbon mast is used. I for one do not claim to know how strongly and in what way a carbon mast affects performance. Nor do I know of a easy and simply way to implement a fair correction. In addition I can't even proof that having a carbon mast impacts on a boats performance in such a significant way that it requires a handicap rating correction. To give an example ; the case for hitting wingmastswith prebend and spreaders when compared to a spreaderless teardrop shape mastsis ALOT stronger and yet NO-ONE ever felt the need to hit wingmast individually. I found that the mere mentioning of carbon makes alot of sailor skittish. This is an emotional response and in many cases it is not well founded in physical phenomena or even real life.

I do very much expect from the official that they make a profound effort to understand why certain things (factors) were included and others were not.

In general I compare this to the following example.

Double glassing.

Going from single glassing to double glassing for windows gives a 50 % reduction in loss of warmth and thus leads to fuel efficiency in the home and savings despite the extra expense linked to double glassing. We can repeat the trick of course a good for triple glassing or event quadriple glassing. The gains will be additional 17 % and 8 % respectively when going from one to another. Theoretically speaking additional gains are made however in reality triple and quadriple glassing doesn't make economical sense, the costs of these outweight the potential gains. It is therefor foolish to seek such windows.

Measurement ratings systems are much the same. After a certain minimal number of inputs the potential gains of adding another input will become very limited and more often then not the additional costs of such an addition will outweigth the potential gains. Carbon mast hits were just such and example and actually ISAF has done away with those in 2003.

Wouter