Ok... I will retract my insult. But you are STILL missing the point... the PROCESS is flawed.

It is not a complaint about any particular problem with the rating table going into 2009.

The process is time consuming and flawed. In my post I summarized a failure of the process. Address or defend the failures of the process if you want to move the ball along.

John,

Of course it will take work... It takes work now to assemble results and send them in, process them etc etc.

But don't go overboard here. We are not trying to rate the F31's each customized to the owner's wish.

The vast majority of sailors are using a one design catamaran.. even an old member of the dead boat society and they will not need to worry about a rating certificate. If the boat is declared class legal by the owner... It has a measurement rating!
(old sails, heavy waterlogged boats will not sail to their rating... that is just life.

It's a Corinthian sport... You know if you change something important to go faster... you will have to get an individual rating.... Sail a class legal boat... go racing with a stock measurement rating.

If you decide to get creative and modify the one design boat... (That is your choice... but to race it you will have to pay to get a measurement rating for your new creation. Again... changing a tramp from Nacra to some third party is not going to change your rating...

We need measurement of the following boats which are currently raced and don't have a texel rating. (I used my personal texel PN database and did not check the SCHRS list) It's also important to know if the EU version of the boat differs from the US version as well...

Supercat 22 (Arc 22)
Supercat 20 Tall Rig
Hobie Miracle 20 with and without spin
Nacra 5.8 NA
Prindle 19MX
Hobie 16 single handed
Nacra F17
Isotope
Mystere 4.3
Mystere 5.5
Mystere 6.0
P Cat??? the west coast boat that is still raced and made fun of.

One off designs that were given a spot in the tables
CFR 20

Red Herrings!
The light weight Sandwich Island P19 was purpose built for Smythe for a worrel and is now taken apart under a house on Bodkin Creek in MD... It's not going to scare anyone. The owner never claimed it to be a class legal P19!
The Hobie 16 was a cheater boat in the Pan Am Games and the sailor was protested and booted for cheating... sad actually.

Any new boat design could be denied entry until the builder or owner got the thing measured and certified the boat as a class. We need to get about 12 boats measured... budget some money and we can get it done. We can always estimate the boat classes that don't comply and deny them entry in the Alter Qualifier's if they can't generate a one time class measurement... So we could generate a ratings table for all boats in the USPN table.

How can I become a certified measurer? Or how can I become a data input person?

I am very good with excel and I now learning access. I am also fairly good with web development.

I have some ideas and I will not make them public until I get good information on my above questions. This question is for anyone please send me a PM.

I suspect there is no such thing beyond what any one-desin class has in their by-laws.

I was a Tornado Class measurer and my ticket was a lesson from the previous measurer and a letter from him to the National Secretary.

I was appointed a regional J/24 measurer by Rod Johnstone when the boat went O/D in 1978.

John, does USSailing have a measurer program?

I think anyone with sense (that disqualifies a few Catsailors) and a tapemeasure can do it. Oh...and race car scales

There may be a stability test in some of the rules, but if there is, I'm sure you can be taught to do that.

I would propose self-measuring if indeed measuring is deemed appropriate. Corinthians...RIGHT?

And a third party sign off as well. You can measure yourself, and have someone double check your numbers.

Uh, that's probably not a good idea. Given the opportunity some people will play fast and loose and it only takes one. If a cert is required a third party needs to be involved and it needs to be someone that knows what they are doing.

If we can't trust the First and Second parties....do you think the 3rd guy will be more honest?

And keep in mind when you are dealing with "cheaters", a signed and sealed certificate can be just another part of the charade.

Maybe so, but I don't like the idea of self certification. It will just degrade into another system you can't trust. This is the wrong road to take.

Actually Dave, I didn't say "self certification", I said "self measuring".

A fine point, but important.

As stated by others, most measuring is redundant anyway. 95% of what we see are one-design classes. If you want to find cheating, look there for compliance. In most cases, you will not find it with a tape measure.

Major regattas should and do have compliance oversight. That is where it becomes important.

There are many ways to cheat and the measuring certificate would be low on the list if I were to try.

I'm not concerned with the OD/Formula stuff, we've all been around a while and non OD modes are easy to spot. My concern is with the one off's and the frankenboats. These boats must be measured, certified or whatever by a third party. This is were the resources will be spent with this system.

Simon - Can you explain the SCHRS formulas? Also the spin to nonspin numbers don't look right-I don't believe that a Prindle 19 or a Nacra 5.8 are faster than a F18.

I don't see any of y'all, except maybe JW, considering what really happens. At least in my experience with mixed fleet local racing.

I ran Slip to Ship for five years. In that five years there were anything from 40 to 60 boats. Of all sorts, and I mean all sorts.

Here's a breakdown:
I'd have two or three 6.0na, one of whom carried a chute and had a famous USSailing admin as a crew;
two to three 18sq, one of whom is a Cat I;
four to eight H16, three-five TheMightyHobie18 (not enough numbers to justify busting them out for their own trophy);
One or two P18 'classic' both of whom have oversized Smyth sails that we nicknamed 'P18mx';
One guy had a 5.8na with widened beam and 6.0na sailplan, and he even singlehanded this thing;
One N6.0 Express;
One or two Inter 18;
Two to three Inter 20/Nacra 20, one of whom has an aftermarket main;
Hobie 18 SX, one with chute, one without;
One, maybe two, Mystère 4.3 (with chute but high rating, ouch, yeah, I caught a buttload of **** for ya, JW)
etc, there's more, but y'all get the idea.

Now, I'm running this race with effectively two people who know anything about Portsmouth scoring. Any volunteers I can get prolly don't know what in Hell is going on with Portsmouth (Isn't that a city in Rhode Island?) So they don't know what to ask when they're handed entry sheets with incorrect, or as usually the case, NO Portsmouth rating.

Asking some of these modified racer guys to know what their rating is? Y'all gotta be FUCKIN' kidding. Yeah, they should, but they won't...

Asking the WAY understaffed RC to MEASURE? Y'all gotta be FUCKIN' kidding!

In my experience running Slip to Ship, Joe Average Racer has gone and bought some new sails for his old boat that he's fixing up, mainly because he CANNOT AFFORD to shill for something newer. Joe wants to go out and be competitive with what he has. Joe don't wanna bother with all that scoring crap, that's what he paid the entry fee for, the RC to handle it.

ANYTHING that y'all yayas contemplate to change the system better damned well consider what I suspect is usually the case, a harassed, understaffed, fried out RC who just wants to put on a fun race with a minimum of bitching. Do I sound burned out? I hope I do. I PROMISE y'all that the declining number of regattas and participation will only continue to decline if y'all come up with a system which is even more RC-intensive than Portsmouth is.

Personally, it's been my observation that Portsmouth is just fine. Like I said before, the fast guys win. I've never seen it happen any differently in my five years of managing S2S. Chances are, the people who aren't happy with their numbers are the ones who don't bother understanding the ratings system or learning how to sail well.

Whatever system is implemented should absolutely be NATIONAL or INTERNATIONAL. Local weather or whatever anomaly is "averaged out" and any bias applies to ALL boats when the sample size is large enough (ergo national/international). Local handicapping is an extremely bad idea for local political reasons. Local measurement is a bad idea for the same reasons, and also because on a local level there isn't enough manpower.

YES...I agree Dave. We eliminate 95% of the certifying and focus on 5%. That is an easy goal to reach.

Now here's the big question folks: Is all this talk going anywhere or are we just P.I.T.W. ???

I feel dampness on my cheeks.

there was a conflict of interest there that no one seemed to give a crap about. All of it, in the end, really eliminates any desire to do open class racing. I don't race much because it isn't why I sail for the most part. I am less inclined to go out of my way (even minimally) to race these days due to stuff like this (and other issues concerning certain esteemed "fast" sailors who some think we need to bow to).


BTW, I don't even know really where to start to get a rating for my F31... would be nice to just use the DPN for it but there are so many variants and the weights can differ by close to 1000lbs between them.

How long have you got?

You can go thru the maths as the formulas are documented on the site if you really want to - I do not; we would be here for weeks.....!!!!!

In the right hands, a longer boat, that is a LITTLE more lardy with bigger sails and crews of similar skill levels will be faster, this is what SCHRS is all about; the best crews will win as SCHRS only rates the BOAT, the rating is not effected by the skills of the sailors of the boats - this IS what happens with returns based systems such as PY.

Tammi Wrote


Tammi, You really don't have anymore of a problem then with portsmouth. Portsmouth requires you to find the correction factor... multiply the rating by the factor and use it. Each mod is a multiply by x factor.

If the sailor gets a larger then stock sail for his boat and doesn't bother with also getting it measured. Do what you do with Portsmouth... He gets the over size penalty to race which in this case will be 1 oe 2 % percent faster. (just to keep the math easy and be very fair to the racers who do have a legit measurement with texel or Isaf... this turns out to be very easy... subtract 1 from the rating.).

The Texel math for a spin is also easy... It's subtract 4 % from the rating
Nacra 6.0 = 99
Nacra 6.0 with chute = 95
Nacra 20 = 95

If they want to sail that boat at the regional alter qualifier... they will need to have their sail measured.

Your sailwave scoring program would have all of the combinations that your experience determines will show up and you just register the sailor and the boat accordingly.

A rating certificate will only help the sailor with a non stock boat.

When they get interested in racing... they will figure out the system and get their toy properly rated. Till then.. it won't matter to the fleet or to the sailor. Your life is no different as well.

Mark, you didn't read my post.

I stated quite clearly that I can't get these guys to know their own Portsmouth numbers. Do you think that they'll magically get the impetus to go get measured? And of course they won't, and then what? I refuse them entry to the regatta? I don't care about regional races - those are well supported. At least they're better supported than mine is, obviously.

I read your post... do what you do now with your portsmouth correction. I can't see any changes.

you look up their base boat and start subtracting for corrections. oversized main = - 2%... spinaker = -4%. You are not trying to ACCURATELY rate them... you are rating them so they can race fairly in that regatta based on the information they provide. (If they expect you to walk the beach and spot their modifications as they push off the beach... well that is a different problem all together)

When the sailor cares enough to pay attention... he can go get his stuff measured... till then the subtractions are fair
If he ever bothers to get a measurement certificate ... he might do better on the race course.

He knows he has a bigger sail and should be faster... It becomes his problem when he wants it to be. It's never yours (you just subtract for each modification he reports) or the fleets problem (the subtractions are worst case hits) If he reports no modifications... the usual protest will solve the problem.

Some events will be more rigorous and they would require a measurement certificate for one off or modified boats. Currently the alter qualifier does not allow these boats to race.

I can't see your problem it's no difference in procedure

Sorry to here your trap line broke Simon

So what you are saying is if you want to improve your chances of winning, instead of bitching about your rating you would be better placed turning that effort into training.

I personaly could not care less about my rating whilst racing mixed class events especially if I come in with a one of special. I'll race for fun first and formost and have a laugh over the results later. If I wanted to race for sheep stations, I will go race OD or Formula.

If a boat strays from the norm, does not have a measurement certificate or rating, why not hit them with a significant penalty.

Just my view and perhaps not most peoples but I am not overly concerned.

Exactly!