Who at US Sailing, Jake?

Mark, here is an interesting case:
Hans Geisler has shown strong interest in the full Florida 300 for next year. His G-Cat 5.0m has a square top main and just ordered a reacher type sail that will not use a spin pole but be attached to the front bows with a traveler system to switch sides. What would we need from him to get a rating?

By the way, add a wing mast with w/spreaders instead of a tear drop w/out spreaders and boomless now vs stock w/boom. Oh yea, He's planning on having T-foils built into the hull for the 300. I've seen the mock-up.

From: http://www.schrs.com/rules.php
E.3 Foiling catamarans
An event organiser or race committee should consider scoring foiling boats separately. Foiling boats are defined as boats with lifting foils of non-constant radius that are capable of flight above the water.

Well, I was hoping Rick would be the one to break the news but we have been talking and Rick is willing to step up to the plate and score the Steeplechase using SCHRS this year. I will work with Rick on scoring to try to make it seamless.

Dave Ingram also stepped up to the plate and offered to help with sorting out ratings and I will help out where needed. A good concerted effort from posters on this thread willing to step up to the plate to try and make competition as fair as possible.

Mark has also been beneficial and as the North American SCHRS representative, I am sure I will be looking to him for help as well.

Between Hans Geisler, Ralph Cole and Dave Ingram, we are close to getting a rating nailed down for the G-Cat. This will be a very specific rating becuase only two were ever made. Hans Also sent us additional info on his other G-Cat models. I am going to go through the process for my Supercat 20 hopefully at the Miami-Key Largo.

My personal opinion on foiling is that it is a different animal from other cats and should be scored as such but should have their own class. Even though SCHRS incorporates foiling into ratings, they also state that foilers should have their own class.

There are DPN multipliers you use for each additional/upgraded item and sail.Foils would be different boards. They are in the charts or used to be.

But will the G-cat 5.0 be able to fly? How does that figure in?

Look the word here is fair, not perfect. Not sure how the rest of you do it but we normally split boat classes up so they are not more than 10 dpn points apart. When they are or when the race is run as a single class the highest number almost always wins. I am talking distance racing.

Maybe the best way to do this is to get the average of the dpn numbers of the stock boats and give it a number not more than 10 away. Or maybe take the scratch boat number and do 10. Just a thought.

US Sailing either needs to update Portsmouth or switch to a different system.

Hi Mark,
You are correct but we also administer a series where we are not in charge of all events. I work directly with the event organizers on specific items but in the end it is their race and many hate change especially when it is a lot more work.

Sail Series Promotions is also a member of US Sailing and makes sense to have our races use the same scoring system as the organization we are a member of.

It is great that Rick has agreed to use SCHRS for the Steeplechase but other event organizers might not be so willing. I have already gotten a little push back from some sailors not wanting change and asking why change. If US Sailing declared Portsmouth dead and switched to SCHRS, there would be no need for discussions. From a series stand point, it makes more sense having all events use the same rating system as the rest of the country instead of going rouge but if the only system has not been updated in five years and doesn't have ratings for any of the new boats, it really leaves you no choice unless you make up your own ratings for new boats like the Nacra 17 olympic boat.

There is also the fact that we are going to have to measure a lot more boats if we are the only ones to use SCHRS. By using the same system globally, that load would be shared by other events. So far, we need get ratings for the G-Cat 6.1 and ARC 22. That is assuming the N-20 is stock. I seriously doubt the MKL and Mug Cup would switch unless US Sailing switches.

Mike, a good place to start. A very reliable source told me a few months ago that Jack Giehart (Executive Director of US Sailing) had told him that he was completely unaware of the status of the Portsmouth system and who ran it. They continued to talk about how there should be handicap racing in dinghies in the U.S.

I've tried to obtain Portsmouth numbers for 3 boats this year, one Nacra, 2 RS Sailboats.
I started with the email on the U.S. Sailing Website "PortsmouthNA@att.net), those kept getting bounced.
I reach out to a friend of mine at U.S. Sailing, Nate Titcomb who is in charge of PHRF and etc, apparently he is supposed to oversee Portsmouth to some extent.
Nate tried to help me get in touch with Carl Reigart (in charge of system) several times with no luck.
I finally ended up doing some research, found Carl's number andI spoke with him. He admitted that the system is out of date because no one sends him data to update it. He told me to send him data from another email address of mine, he received it and acknowledged it but I never heard back.
I actually just sent the email again now, but I have to admit my bandwith for dealing with this is low.
If someone could take this up the ladder at US Sailing it would be awesome.
Personally I think the US needs to move on from Portsmouth and adopt something that rest of the world (starting with Europe) with a system such as Texel or PY.

If you are saying that someone cannot participate in a race unless they have their boat certified, many of the weeekend warriors will just not race.

N20 "european" had some sail area differences, fyi...smaller spinnaker if I remember correctly.

Didn't you try out something similar in the last 300 with day-races for those not entering the entire event? How did that fare?