Rick White went to the Card Sound Bridge to get pictures of boats coming through for the Miami-Key Largo Race. Here is the order he saw the first 13 come under the bridge. This is NOT finish order, because the finish line is at the south end of Barnes Sound.

1. Eric Roberts, RC 30, under bridge at 10:30 a.m.

2. Mike Phillips, Marstrom 20, 10:45

3. Tornado with Jamie Livingston crewing (don't know skipper, maybe Hans Barth?), at 10:59 a.m.

4. Steve Lohmayer, I-20

5. Clive Mayo on A-cat, close behind Lohmayer

6. Kenny Pierce, 5 minutes later on Stiletto 23

7. RC27

8. I-20 with Terry Greene crewing, don't know skipper.

9. Tornado

10 Chris Stater on F-16

11 Nacra F-18 #325

12. Carla Schieffer on A-cat (2 people on board) equipped with spinnaker but weren't able to use it.

13. Nacra F-18 #588

Rick will post pictures later.

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Race started at 8 a.m. Wind out of the southeast, so not a spinnaker day.

Want more results. There was a leak, as the org. does not like anyone to know the results so more folks come to their awards party the following week. But results of top boats leaked out at our Facebook Page.
By the way, if you go there, please click on the LIKE, that is, if you do.
http://www.facebook.com/catamaransailor

Well, the reason we need to move to SCHRS, a measurement system, is easily seen by looking at the MKL results.

RC 30... Hmm.. Portsmouth wants data from a fleet of RC 30's racing against known boats in the yardstick. Hmm... how many RC 30's are there?... Bueller?... Bueller? ... Anyone?

Arc 21's... Portsmouth wants data from a fleet of ARC 21's racing against several known boats (each) in the yardstick. Hmm... how many ARC 21's are there?

Marstrom 20's......?

Stilleto 23's ...?

Arc 27's....?

How you can use a statistical handicapping system when you only have ONE BOAT RACING IN THE COUNTRY? This simply defies rational explanation. (Jake ... I am still waiting for a plausible explanation... Now when you want to make this PHRF ... I will stop poking you with this particular stick.)

Nevertheless... you run the numbers for a winner... When you run the numbers... I exclude the one-off boats which are not in SCHRS and then compare the BCE's... Unfortunately.. You get two different winners...

Worse then that... one rating system has the winner by 5 minutes... While SCHRS, the one I trust, has the other boat winning by 3 minutes... (The names withheld to protect the leaker)

Portsmouth simply fails at rating these boats and allowing the best sailing performance to win. If we used SCHRS... these one-off boats would be measured... the formula is transparent... a rating comes out of a spreadsheet. no magic asterisks allowed! We don't have to move to PHRF with regional rating panels and all of this politics.

We would have a useable system that the rest of the world is using.

2 minutes? Are you saying that a 2 minute difference over a 100+ mile race is reason to switch to a different handicap system? That's not much variance.

I think that would be 8 minutes with a different leader.

I agree with Mark on the whole Portsmouth vs. any measurement rating system. Portsmouth works -ok- but it depends on input from race/time results, where skipper, crew, wind and water conditions is always a variable.

More input provides more accurate ratings, but with so few boats racing in some of the categories...there is not enough accurate input to come up with an accurate number.

Being a math guy, I've always believed there should be a formula that would take some of the basics like sail area, weight, hull length, beam, etc. and come up with a rating for just about any sailboat.

I'm sure if we put someone like Pete Melvin on it he could come up with a pretty accurate speed prediction type formula to rate racing cats. Portsmouth, especially in a small fleet, is a little vague in my opinion.

I agree with Mark. The ARC21 can never sail to a 61.5. Look at the SC20 tall rig, 10 ft beam, higher rating the the 21?

By the way, where is Brett Moss and crew on the M-20?

and for some reason, I had Key West on the brain...Key Largo is considerably less than 100 miles from Miami.

Again Mark!? I won't use SCHRS because there are boats missing... Hobie 20 (W.T.F). What do I do with Mr. Frankenboat without a measurement cert for his Frankensails? Sorry Mr. Frankenboat we can't score you because we don't have your number and you don't have a cert.

Fix those issues Mark and I'm in, you are "Mr. DPN sucks lets use something else" after all.

Also, didn't Texel tweak down the F18 number? Can you please describe the transparent process for that action. Were all the formula classes tweaked in the same way? If not, why not? What's so magical about the F18 that only the F18 number was adjusted? It is a heavy boat built with inferior products after all.

Factoid... DPN has a measurement formula.

First, looks like the Miami - Key Largo was a great race. Can't wait to hear more details. Sorry, I missed it, stuff got in the way.

As to comments about getting rid of Portsmouth. You have a big up hill climb there. Changing the rating system will not fix it. Portsmouth is actually quite good as a system. Yes, if I had the power I would monkey with some boats. However, as someone who spends way to much time running races rather than sailing them, I can tell you race management is not interested in a new system until- You give (us) a manuel with a rating for every boat ever built. Right now Portsmouth is pretty close to that. We have a big race coming up with everything entering that has a sail you can stick on it. The first boat to sign up was some Hobie tri hull thing that you can pedal. So we start by telling them to take off the pedal things. What is SCHRS going to do for me? From the race management side, we just want to run a race. We are not interested in solving the worlds problems. For every 2 guys that even knows anything about the rating systems and wants a change, there are 4 others who want it left just like it is. Yes, those are the 4 that think they have an advantage, but why would a race committee want to use a different system that only rates a few catamarans and we will take a bunch of heat for the change? What about all of the monohulls? We have 200 monohulls racing and maybe 50 cats and you want us to use a multihull rating system?
Now on to the big picture, there are way to many variables for a rating system to contemplate, period. The boat designers do not even have the situation figured out. Take 10 identical boats and race them. You will have 10 different finishes. Now take those 10 people and put them on 10 different boats and now you want those ten people to finish at the same time using a rating system? That is what your "we need a different rating system" looks like to those that have spent a lot of time on both ends of the race course. Unforetunely, that boils down the whole rating discussions/ problems/ challenges.

Now as to the Miami- Key Largo Race...Those top ten finishers are who you need to look at as winning. All different boats in the top ten. Each skipper that sailed those particular designs did the best. So of those top ten, who do you think did the best with what they brought to the race? My point, we really do not need a new rating system to see who won and we never have. The results speak for themselves. I know I would not have beaten any of those top ten folks in any of those boats they sailed. If would have been fun to try though. Great job sailing folks.

Dave.... Obviously you see the problem.... ONCE A YEAR... it's a problem for MKL... but they are not going to rock the boat for once a year... .. but... ITS A PROBLEM... .... now the ONLY QUESTION is what solutions are acceptable.



Have HIM get a tape measure... make the 10 or so measurements we need.... Weigh the damn thing at Spring Fever for free... actually weigh ANY US Boat that is not on the ISAF or Texel list... eg an ISOTOPE, or god forbid a Shark when you are doing your F18's .... because it's a good cause and you have the opportunity.

When the world decides that HIS measurements are not good enough.... Then we can worry about an independent measurement.
Get a third guy with the tape measure!

When that is not good enough... we can then worry about and independent and certified measurement. (Get a third guy with the tape measure and have the two of them sign the measurements.... INSTANT Independent Certificate)

When that is not good enough we can then worry about and independent, certified and US MHC council or ISAF approved measurement..... get the guys on the ends of the tape measure to do a couple of boats and get the OK from US Multihull... and finally.... ISAF

Why would Mr Hobie 20 owner bother with doing this bit of extra work... BECAUSE HE WANTS TO RACE OTHER BOATS FAIRLY.... and... he happens to like his dead boat...

This is only as big of a problem as you want to make it.

Wearing our Yacht Club... event organizer... hat. Lots options. When he comes to our events.... Make SCHRS scoring published along with USPN scoring.... Next year... SCHRS will get the trophies and USPN published...

Lots and lots of solutions are possible.

Frakenboat.... ditto. Have him measure the damn thing.... He built it after all.

Had to laugh last night when the email came through suggesting that the Tuesday night West River Catamaran Association put on their agenda last night the proposal ... Change from Portsmouth to ANYTHING else...

Really Mark? Just measure a bunch of boats outside my class because I just enjoy it so much and time is infinite at regatta weekends? It's your cause, stop yacking about it on the forum and execute for F!@K sake. Don't expect other people that aren't behind your cause to do the work for you.

I'm also not going to tell Mr. Frankenboat to piss off get your boat measured and I'm not going to put a tape to his boat, I'm already occupied providing the services to my own class. I will simply use a system that allows him to sail and welcome him/her to our regatta and let them witness the wonder that is class racing.

And good on West River Catamaran Association for taking the initiative without the blessing of US Sailing. I still don't understand why anyone cares what US Sailing recommends in regards to handicap systems.

so, was midnight pass (or whatever they call that shallow spot to the west of the island) the strategy to take, or straight down the highway?

Mark,
Dave and Kathy work their butts off measuring boats at SF. He did my A for me for $10 which I consider a deal, because short of a nationals I won't get any other chances, but to throw "measure them for free because you have the chance" out there is way out of touch.He's there to race ,ya know. You've always been a great volunteer but point out how little gets done by other folks. Well, asking Dave to measure everything for free is the exact kind of action and attitude that drives away volunteers.
I personally see a ton of merit in what Kaos said. Portsmouth may be far from perfect but it's in place and the effort it would take to switch, on every level, is going to be more damaging than doing nothing.

Todd

Todd

The free part was supposed to get Dave to say... let em weigh their own damn boat.... My shot...obviously missed it's mark... (but he will calm down)

Fact of life... there are no boats registered at Spring Fever that need to be weighed for an SCHRS rating... (and I knew that) This makes my point that the dead boats... are really dead and the problem is not so large.

Re MLK... and Portsmouth... Look...One solution that has integrity is just to say... We have a PHRF system We invent a rating table that we believe to be fair....It looks a lot like the portsmouth ratings but we make up all the new boats from now on. Then the table could be adjusted as somebody see fit.

(Dave will now get all fired up again... because I think he hates PHRF more then he does Portsmouth... or maybe that is Krantz)

I am OK with a PHRF system for small catamarans... People will do their best to create a fair ratings table...It serves nobodies interest to have a skewed system and so it is what it is.

I personally think it is much much better to use SCHRS... (You don't have to buy the measurer a beer... the PHRF big shot... er... maybe not a bad idea)

My objection is the pretense that we are using Portsmouth! I think it is complete BS to pretend that we have a PORTSMOUTH YARDSTICK... when in fact we have to make up a lot of ratings and insert them into the yardstick.

Remember... back in the day.. I was a big proponent of Portsmouth and Handicap racing. Just ask Carl Roberts..
Times have changed...and so has my opinion

Portsmouth is not sustainable... no data... It is neither fish nor foul.

Handicap Racing has been cut in half as the dead boats have moved out of the racing fleet

So... in my region... we have two races that are scored handicap.

So... buy Dave (the measurer) a beer for me anyway and I will get you on Triple Threat!

Midnight pass was the deal fo sho.... We stayed above the fleet for the entire first leg, didn't tack until we could feel the heat from the reactors at Turkey Point! This was a tactical coup for us, most tacked way too early and ended up sailing a header to the channel. We rolled several boats by staying with the lifters all the way to the end.

see, ordinarily chasing fliers like that gets you screwed big time. It's good to hear that every once in a while it pays off...

I know I'm new here but I was just wondering....are any of the complaints about MKL ratings from anyone who participated in the race?