Todd

the fact that the RC did not use wind adjusted numbers to determine your finish position is irrelevant to calculating the rating for the boat.

All that was needed was for them to turn in the elapsed times and the wind speed for each race. They don't even care about the second boat in the class finish time.

TikPete... its called a yardstick for a reason.

The Primary yardstick is a thistle. the rating will never ever change for a thistle... its the standard which all other boats are compared with. Other boats are designated as secondary yardsticks .... their ratings change very very slowly.

If a rating is not changing... then the boat is being optimally sailed relative to the yardsticks.

Or... the actual speed improvement can not be measured with the amount and quality of the data collected.

the Mid atlantic region could only turn in two or three regattas worth of weekend buoys race data in 2008 because most of the racing is now one design and times were not recorded.

Jake's proposal that statistics will fine tune a measurement rating is merely a dream because the amount of data needed is just not out there to resolve small performance differences.

Even if the new Hobie F18 is a bit faster... Handicap racing will never measure the speed improvement due to the noise of boat racing against a Nacra 20 or a Blade F16.

He presumes that the measurement rating table is not accurate and requires some fine tuning with statisitcs.
To support this notion, he should at least identify boats in the measurement ratings that need some fine tuning with the performance data relative to each other. The sailors who use Texel or SCHRS are not out their complaining.

My view, is that the rating systems are about as accurate as you are likely to get. The differences are how they deal with changes and new designs in time. Measurement rules have a clear advantage.

There is a reason the ratings don't use several decimal places in the tables.

Most of the big boat ratings experts don't think you will be able to do better then 2.5%.... simply based on the nature of racing and the time of the race. Eg... if you don't get a lane on the first beat... you are slotted to a poor rounding round A mark... no matter how fast you are you can't use it on the first 1/4 of the race .... and the clock keeps on ticking.

It's a lot easier to get the data on a boat class measurments once then continually collect race results. If you get creative and change your sail ... then pay the 20 bucks and get it independently measured for your personal rating certificate.

The latest design by Ashy may be faster... but won't be measured using Portsmouth ratings of different class boats.