Hi Kirt



I have two quick points.



Unirigs are excluded from crew weight correction. You don't have the logistical problem of rounding up a crew in order to create a team and you weigh what you weigh (Diet or not.... its your choice) you don't have to depend on the availablity of small or large crew to be competitive on your boat.



The current system of percentage over minimum fails miserably because the unirig optimum sailing weight are well above the class mandated minimums. Consequently, If you use a weight correction for a uni sailor... the sailor at the optimum weight will be given a Portsmouth BONUS.... This is not the spirit of the system. Some uni's don't have minimums to base the scheme on either.



The major unirig classes are the H17, the N5.5u, the A cat and the I17R/FXone classes. Only The A cat handles weight ranges with a reasonable scheme. The other boats are manufacture one designs and either you fit the boat or you don't.



Heavy boats (or Old sails). Yes... these are tremendous liabilities. However, they are correctable with the purchase of new equipment in racing shape. I think that this factor in small boat racing is very different then the factor that you and your wife are 40 lbs heavier on a Hobie 16 then all of the fast Hobie 16's. You can't sell or trade in the crew here. Well prepped boats in racing shape should perform better then recreational beaters and that is part of the game that a team can control.



While one could conceive of a system that normalized boats with appropriate corrector weights. (for weights above the class spec.). I think that this is beyond the scope of a handicap system.



I will dig up some of the valid critisims of our existing scheme. EG... modern hull shapes (Inter, Nacra 6.0) carry weight bettern then older designs... eg Tornado, Dart, Hobie 16 etc. However, The theoretical limitaitions are not really seen in the real world and the system works well (EG the statue race). I attribute this to the fact that the current system does not correct to 100% parity.



This is a worthwhile discussion.

Take Care

Mark