First of all... as the OA... you have already decided to do more because you are allowing a sailor with a modified one design to race with a measurer's certificate. If the fellow shows up with the proper certificate... he races... no problems.

What would you do if the protest committee heard an equipment protest between two F18's on a measurement. No more no less.

If you want to do the exact same amount of work Change the NOR to SCHRS... delete the text about bracket boats. Keep the restriction on modified one design boats (no entry). Nobody shows up with a certificate... all the boats are in the table.

The SCHRS ratings table will even use the same names as the USPN table. No difference in work or practice.

What am I missing that you see a problem with?

Guys,

Are the F18's measured in the US?

Maybe there should be a separate discussion for cheating, I dont see how it is related to which rating system you use.
Personally I have never seen any cheating going on with measurements, IMHO you would have to do some pretty big and obvious boat changes for it to have any real effect.

Guys and gals, if you are to change to a mathematical model as your method of handicapping, then you are going to have to take into account what sort of boats are going to mainly use that model.

Certainly if you are going to be using it for modern designs such as the F16, A's, some home builds, rather than older more established ( read heavily built boats ) then pick your model wisely as both Texel ( of which I have limited knowledge as the UK tends to use SCHRS ) and SCHRS have real peculiarites with certain boats.

SCHRS for example mercilessly penalises light boats ( such as the A's and single handed F16's ) where I feel most of the future classes are being established from. Any boat that is both light, single handed and has a jib has absolutely no chance to be able to perform to its handicap. The F16 class is a point in case under SCHRS with the single hander having a faster handicap than both F18 or Hurricane 5.9 which in reality is never going to be the case on the water.

On the other hand if your boats are heavy ( such as the F18 and Hurricane 5.9 ) by class rules, but have well developed modern high aspect sails with bouyant hulls to match then you are onto a winner and SCHRS is your baby.

I do realise that no mathematical model is going to be able to " handicap " everything correctly and this is why I advocated earlier that it has to be both reported and mathematical evidence which dictates a boats handicap. With modern sailing scoring programs such as Sailwave being used by lots of clubs to reduce the manpower to be able to run races, then its only a natural extension to use that data to report to a central computer for statistical analysis.

Only this way will the boats which fall outside of there mathematical model ever be able to do something about an incorrect handicap and computer generated models be adjusted to handicap correctly the next generation of boats. I personally think that with the amount of data available worldwide then it would be a relatively short time before the handicap system settled down to give a pretty fair opportunity for all boats.

This is being looked at. I have written a paper and this has been submitted to the TC for consideration.

Wait! I have an idea - to keep things simple and on the level and reduce the possibility that someone might cheat their rating, let's not allow non-standard modifications at qualifiers!

ok, I meant to be sarcastic with that one.

Listen, I don't have intimate familiarity with fleets or people that race handicap using SCHRS - but I guarantee you there are people that complain about the flaws within as much as the detractors to Portsmouth do. It's all an approximation.

Yes, but I don't see where you're going with this Simon.

Correct. All handicapping is an approximation. No argument there.

The current problem is that the Portsmouth system is broken. The statistical data to make the approximation which is the foundation of the Portsmouth system does not have enough observations such that the system is no longer valid method for adding and updating boat ratings. Theoretically, I would argue that it is the ideal system but it requires a lot of CURRENT observations between all of the raced boats to be relevant for today's races.

Whereas, Texel & SCHRS are boat measurement based models of handicapping that have been developed and MAINTAINED by an active committee of racers. The mathematical models are TWEEKED as changes in designs, rig, and sails are developed. Again, it is an approximation but at least they attempt to recognize the innovations that have come forward and provide a solid foundation to justify a boat's number.

Not all area reps sail F18's and not all F18 sailors are measures and none are ISAF certified. So, for someone that doesn't sail an F18 or hasn't measured a boat and doesn't care to your point is lost. The area reps are looking at DPN and <your favorite measurement system here> and saying no work vs. potential work. And Mark you know as well as anyone people aren't exactly standing in a queue to be an area rep. and now we are going to ask them to have a SCHRS accepted measurer onsite for the regatta.

I have no love for DPN but the potential headaches of adopting a system that doesn't have numbers for popular boats (IMO) is unacceptable and pushing that obligation to the individual owners is going to be tough sell. Based on Eric's post my concerns about measurement protests are the same, and NO it's not the same as an F18 regatta where certs are checked. Also based on Eric's post any proposal will need to come with names attached that are responsible for ruling on the items Eric pointed out.

Dave

This is just a red herring. The Championship Committee can chose to only allow boats on the published list in the exact configuration to race. That will be exactly what we have now and no more hassle then running a PN race.

Every regatta should have a Chief Judge, Protest Committee, Race Committee and Measure'r. Obviously we don't fill all of these spots...

Moreover, In all my life... only once was there a portsmouth measurement issue.... (A Hardcore 16 and the builder wanted to race it at Ft Smallwood... A measurement committee was called and we made one up for the day.)

BTW, Who did you have as measurer for your qualifier last year? Any equipment issue must be addressed in the same way.... (see erics post).. In portsmouth... a P19mx could enter and be protested for the extra extra large main. You have the same issue.... There is no certificate for that main... You would have to find the class rule (ha ha) and get it measured to resolve the protest.

I agree. I am working with SCHRS to sort this out for the stock US boats that are in the current PN table.

The gentleman from "Surf-City-Racing" generously helped me identify standard config boats from the Texel list. I could not identify a standard boat configuration under SCHRS. I had to set a TCF rating for a race in California.

European major brands are the same. However, the boat model names change from europe to the United States and I am not a subject matter expert.


261 Boats, Texel as of July 10, 2010
244 boats, SCHRS as of this afternoon

Texel Ratings (English web page )
- texel.ratings.July 10, 2010. Zipped
- texel.ratings.July 10, 2010. Excel.XLS (97->2003)

Spinnaker Areas are the most common change to date. Spin.Area can be input into Texel per ISAF ERS measurements, or just inserted in metric equivalence in column CW, SAS (sail.area.spinnaker). The other normal variables, Vertical Luff Main, Jib, ...

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ZIP is on the English-language page of Watersportverbond, the Dutch National Authorityweb server in the Netherlands.
XLS is on the BAMA web server.