Wouter,
measurement systems are equally bad. They typeform the development of boats, and often in bad directions. Just look at the IMS monohulls with wooden keels and lead in the bilge.. The same is valid for formula classes like the F18 and our own F16 class (e.g. hooter/code zero vs. spi debate).
The most "correct" rating system would in my opinion be a personal rating for each sailor/team on specific boats. But in the end, sailing is a sport where you choose your classes and live with your choices. Pretty much like any other activity you choose to do.
Will be very interesting to see what happens with your system Mark! Please keep us informed.
Rolf, I agree that IMS got silly, but then they were trying to control / legislate for everything.
This is the strength of Texel / SCHRS, simple enough for EVERYONE to understand, open and published rating method (unlike some of the leadmine ratings that are black box).
It also depends what you want to achieve....
If you want to reward the person who sails better than
they usually do, then you need personal handicaps. If you want to reward the person who sails the best in a fleet full of poor sailors, then you use PY type systems as they rate the boat
and the sailor, if you want to reward the best sailor, you use a formula based rating system such as SCHRS and Texel.
No rating sytem is 100% accurate, and it depends on what you are trying to reward. PY and rating systems do not reward quite the same things.
One of the overriding reasons SCHRS changed from 2 to 3 decimal place rating was becasue we were starting to see people design boats to the rule and not "good" boats.
IMO the rule needs to be:
1, Open so people can understand what happens when they change something
2, Simple so it can be understood.
BUT, people also need to understand the different philosophies behind the systems.
One thing that the Dart 18 class do very well is that they also have a "personal" handicap at their open meetings, each person has a handicap and this varies after each event based on where you finish and the handicap of those that are infront and behind you. There are "handicap" prizes at each event for those that improve the most.
