he problem, as it stands is that good data is hard to get. Every race has situations that skew data...wind shifts, pressure holes, bad starts, 360 turns, wind shadows, etc. that are uncompensated.
From a statistical standpoint, since every race has result skewing conditions, they cancel each other out.
I believe portsmouth does a good job. I think we can enhance it a little by modernizing the software that manages it, reviewing the routines for any enhancements we could make, and giving Darline some more help (or helping remove it from her responsibility if that is what she wishes). I am not in favor of the wholesale replacement of it because I feel that it works as well or better than the other options out there. Can it be made better? sure - but I don't think it's even close to needing replacement. You also have to remember that nearly all of the handicap youth / dingy racing in the US also depends on Portsmouth handicap - so the picture here is bigger than catamarans alone and we don't really have the authority to abandon it completely.
The quote with Ding that I had earlier was sarcasm based on the known fact that Ding abhors handicap racing and we've been drumming about this for a while now...that thread was getting more off topic and since this discussion seems to weave into (and overtake) several other threads, Ding pointed it that way as a joke and I was laughing with him (and then it did go that way which is even funnier).
I'll try to read up on NMBRs tonight because I don't remember the finer details of the system...but if I remember correctly, it's a tweak to the measurement based systems to add two ratings per platform to accommodate different wind strengths. It also includes a polynomial trend into the performance curve for the boat to better account for the variations in performance among basic boat configurations. If I have this correct, it's still a wholesale change for the Portsmouth situation and would require a whole lot of new work to be done.
Measurement systems exist and if Portsmouth was to enhance itself by adding some measurement basis, there are other measurement systems that already established the boat numbers and their experimentation is complete. We wouldn't have to reinvent the wheel. Wouter has done some neat things but it seems that the other existing systems have already incorporated some of those thoughts.
