Ah... now I see the problem.
First of all Jake... if you don't want to read the discussion... Please, Shut the hell up!

The issues are not trivial and require a bit more thought then NO! its not broken.

Standing there and declaring... NO it won't work because you alone are predicting huge disruption from curved banana boards in developmental classes that could happen in the future is a red herring. The EU Sailors who use measurement systems are not screaming about these pending horrors.... So wait till there is a problem and then deal with them.



You claim that Portsmouth is not broken BUT you ignore the evidence and the current state of affairs. Periodic breakdowns of the system are based in the problems of both reporting and collecting data and other issues. A one year period where the data was not processed is not the problem... the years race data did not disappear. When used for 2008... it generated the 2008 F16 FUBAR!

KNOWN BREAKDOWNS IN THE PN PROCESS
Nacra 5.5 uni rating from 74.5 to approx 69.0 today! 6 years to adjust. (Geographical isolation caused the problem)
Supercat 20 and old members of the dead boat society rating creep upwards. Soln... pitch the new data and go back to the old ratings....otherwise this is known as a BREAKDOWN IN THE PN PROCESS.
F16 MID SEASON major correction required because of limited and suspect data set AND which was driven by the politics of an upcoming area alter qualifier. This should be a stake through the heart of our current broken process. The US rating was an issue for YEARS and so for a class that's been on the market for 5 or so years the mid season correction is a BREAKDOWN IN THE PROCESS not a slight blip! A race held today... NEEDS an accurate rating TODAY... not... oh... you would have won if we used the rating from the future!
One off boats and boat classes that do not reach minimum thresholds of racers or even compete in buoy races. (CFR 20 and Marstrom 20's) These kinds of boats are not supposed to be rated by USPN in the first place (but we want those owners to race them and put them in the table to make it strait forward for OA's and PRO's.)

PLUS a far more serious problem is simply not having enough of the races with the boats to be rated in the first place.
When the underlying assumptions for a portsmouth yardstick are not met... you are left with garbage in and garbage out. THIS IS A BREAKDOWN IN THE PROCESS.

Portsmouth COULD AND SHOULD work as well as measurement systems... but the fact of the matter is... reality is working against it in the USA. Times have changed.



1) Portsmouth is used for dinghy club racing. Dinghy's do not travel a circuit to race on portsmouth the way beach cats do. For example, There are no dinghy Portsmouth races at any of the events I see on the Chesapeake or in the North east. We have ONE river race with boats ranging from 100 + year old log canoes to carbon fiber A cats and everything in between. A ball park rating system is good enough... You are not going to get a portsmouth rating for a log canoe!

Catamaran's have a much bigger stake in a TIMELY and ACCURATE handicap system. We use portsmouth in the same way that big boats use PHRF. Key West serves as a PHRF national championship. It's so important that the major PHRF handicappers arrive at a consensus PHRF rating just for the Key West event. Catamarans use Portsmouth in the Alter qualifiers for our national championship. Catamaran racing needs a handicap system that is timely and reasonably accurate and includes the one off designs that go racing.

2) No authority is needed ... We don't need permission from anyone. If the US multihull committee decided to sanction a measurement rating system in addition to Portsmouth we could move forward. The US Multihull committee would need to appoint some official measurers who would follow the ISAF and Texel standards for recording the basic data. We would have a workable rating table for ISAF and Texel ratings within a month. Hell... we would have roses and kisses from Scooby if we actually weighed a Nacra F17! Racing clubs would choose their own path.... just as they choose to move from Herb Malm's rating system to USPN's rating system many years ago.

The Alter cup Committee would also have the option of choosing a rating system or leave it up to each area to decide... Again... it's the Organizing Authority 's call to decide how the Alter cup qualifier is run.

What's needed in 2009 is for the Multihull council to move forward with bringing the US only designs into the existing Texel and ISAF measurement tables and give their good house keeping seal of approval to the underlying measurements. This is a proper role of the US mulithull council.
They also need to standardize on the boat class naming system so that rating tables can be used interchangeably by the scoring packages. (H16 versus Hobie 16 versus Hobie 16 no spin)


Portsmouth won't go away and no overlord will tell your club what to do with your race. Just like you may now choose to use windspeed adjustments, or allow weight adjustments for crew size for your current events. You will still be asked to turn in your race data to the Portsmouth committee.

Why just the Area Qualifiers? That logic doesn't make sense to me. Why not ANY regatta that uses DPN?

Mark, that was pretty f'in disrespectful.

I said I wasn't going to comment on the particulars because I didn't have time to read through all of the documents on Wouter's site. I didn't comment or try and discuss the particulars or address any of the finer details of his system and I explained why I did not.

I do, however, take large issue with the notion we need to replace Portsmouth - because it's not broken...that was the point I was trying, and did, make. The biggest problem facing Portsmouth is the same one that's going to face any other system in the US...finding volunteers to assist.

Show me the data where Portsmouth does a bad job. Show me some numbers and step away from the conjecture. And try to keep in mind one of my favorite Einstein quotes; if you can't explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it well enough.

GYC uses DPN. I'll certainly be pushing to change that to SCHRS.

Simon - I do understand SCHRS and I applaud your efforts. Yes - mods are simple if you stipulate that someone is doing measurements. In the US, that simply isn't happening - nobody's doing the work, period. So it matters not at all how simple it is - everyone wants a turnkey rating. "I have an F16; what is my rating? My certificate? No, I don't have one." The discussion ends there. As you know from our off-line discussion, I have a sincere interest in SCHRS. But I see quite clearly that the effort required to get US sailors off their duff is no more or less than is already required and eschewed, often with contempt (I'm looking at you, Pete).

Mark - nice idea. I know you're wading through maple syrup like I have been for some time. If you can whip up the troops, more power to ya.

Great Pete - lemme see your certificate that makes you eligible for the SCHRS rating. Let me know when you convince everyone else at GYC to get theirs, too.

I don't see that happening anytime soon.


John, your PM box is full.

Hey guys...this is reaction and over reaction.

Leave your personal issues and sensitivities at home.

I suspect that these outbursts are what have and will doom any useful dialogue.

Grow up.

We need to all be face to face to have this kind of conversation - either people would be more polite in person or at least a fight would break out or something.....and I mean the last part in jest....mostly...

I don't think anyone should expect a nice response to "shut the hell up!".

And BTW, I edited my posted to reduce the tone a little after I read it to myself.

If it is an F16, then it DOES have an SCHRS rating: http://www.schrs.com/index.php?page=ratings

If one up then it is here: http://www.schrs.com/index.php?page=class&id=52

If two up then it is here: http://www.schrs.com/index.php?page=class&id=51

Simple as that.



And yes, I would LOVE someone to weigh an F17!!!!! This boat NEEDS to be measured to get the rating, I have a feeling Nacra are running away from this as they don't want an accurate rating published......

Thank you!

That's what Spring Fever is missing... FIGHT NIGHT!

This is going to be the best Spring Fever EVER!

We have a main event, now we need some undercards... ladies?

Followup question.....

Have a look at the link above. How many boats that are sailed in the US are not listed as having SCHRS ratings? Are we talking about 100's or just a few?

There is an F17 forum listed over there on the left, I'll bet Bob Curry knows exactly how much his Nacra F17 weighs. Why not ask him?

B.2 Rating certificate
To be permitted to race, a boat shall provide a rating certificate issued by the ISAF or a National Authority.
The certificate will state the rating as well as relevant datas concerning the boat and the owner.
The rating certificate is obtained as follows:
The owner shall have a certificate of origin or a measurement form completed by a recognized measurer.
The owner applies to the appropriate National Authority for a rating certificate.
The Rating Certificate is not invalidated by change of ownership, providing the data remains constant.
A National Authority may require a fee.

Pete, Got one? No? Thank you, too.

I get a couple of shots at you each year. Maybe some day I'll get lucky.

"But I see quite clearly that the effort required to get US sailors off their duff is no more or less than is already required and eschewed, often with contempt (I'm looking at you, Pete)."

Look all you want. I'm not the only person disenchanted with the Qualifiers. If you can't see that you're blind.

I choose not to compete in an event in which I'm neither qualified nor wanted and that makes me the bad guy?

You respect me a lot more than I respect you.

So am I the only one who want to measure the course so we can see how fast we are going, then compare boat speeds or lap times? I realize that DPN is a comparison of race times, not lap times, I think we could get better data based on one good lap vs. an entire race.

This refers to another one of those believes (w.r.t. inability of a measurement based system) that is simply not true.

The basis of NMBR is the F18 performance. When the F18 or H16 (as the biggest best attended cat class) performance is determined against a regulary raced monohull then both systems will have been calibrated to eachother and all other ratings can be determine by calculations.

There is really no difference between Yardstick systems and Measurement based systems here with respect to accuracy and practicality.





Texel doesn't use "modifiers" as these changes are already included in the basic measurements. A modifier is a typical yardstick invention to have a yardstick do something that it doesn't do automatically. Correct for an obviously wrong rating of a rarely encountered non-class compliant boat. A measurement system simply regards this modified boat as a seperate design, like is regards all different designs, and produces a rating for in the same way as it does for all other boats. This is actually one of the strong points of a measurement based system.




Seems to me that the vast portion of the work has already been done (Texel, SCHRS, NMBR)

Wouter

Race committees and organizers are overwhelmed.

I think it's a good idea, but who's going to do it.