Gents,
I admit to skimming the previous verbose posts so I don't intend to debate any of the finer points with this post. However, I do wonder why you guys are suggesting such a large deviation from our current Portsmouth system?
...
Ah... now I see the problem.
First of all Jake... if you don't want to read the discussion... Please, Shut the hell up!
The issues are not trivial and require a bit more thought then NO! its not broken.
Standing there and declaring... NO it won't work because you alone are predicting huge disruption from curved banana boards in developmental classes that could happen in the future is a red herring. The EU Sailors who use measurement systems are not screaming about these pending horrors.... So wait till there is a problem and then deal with them.
Portsmouth suffered a period of inactivity a couple of years ago (for a couple of years) that was a personnel/management issue. This happened about the same time the F16 came on the scene which is a big reason that the F16 adjustment took longer than normal to settle in. However, this was not a flaw in the mechanics of the system itself.
...
You claim that Portsmouth is not broken BUT you ignore the evidence and the current state of affairs. Periodic breakdowns of the system are based in the problems of both reporting and collecting data and other issues. A one year period where the data was not processed is not the problem... the years race data did not disappear. When used for 2008... it generated the 2008 F16 FUBAR!
KNOWN BREAKDOWNS IN THE PN
PROCESSNacra 5.5 uni rating from 74.5 to approx 69.0 today! 6 years to adjust. (Geographical isolation caused the problem)
Supercat 20 and old members of the dead boat society rating creep upwards. Soln... pitch the new data and go back to the old ratings....otherwise this is known as a BREAKDOWN IN THE PN PROCESS.
F16 MID SEASON major correction required because of limited and suspect data set AND which was driven by the politics of an upcoming area alter qualifier. This should be a stake through the heart of our current broken process. The US rating was an issue for YEARS and so for a class that's been on the market for 5 or so years the mid season correction is a BREAKDOWN IN THE PROCESS not a slight blip! A race held today... NEEDS an accurate rating TODAY... not... oh... you would have won if we used the rating from the future!
One off boats and boat classes that do not reach minimum thresholds of racers or even compete in buoy races. (CFR 20 and Marstrom 20's) These kinds of boats are not supposed to be rated by USPN in the first place (but we want those owners to race them and put them in the table to make it strait forward for OA's and PRO's.)
PLUS a far more serious problem is simply not having enough of the races with the boats to be rated in the first place.
When the underlying assumptions for a portsmouth yardstick are not met... you are left with garbage in and garbage out. THIS IS A BREAKDOWN IN THE PROCESS.
Portsmouth COULD AND SHOULD work as well as measurement systems... but the fact of the matter is... reality is working against it in the USA. Times have changed.
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.
1) Portsmouth is used for dinghy club racing. Dinghy's do not travel a circuit to race on portsmouth the way beach cats do. For example, There are no dinghy Portsmouth races at any of the events I see on the Chesapeake or in the North east. We have ONE river race with boats ranging from 100 + year old log canoes to carbon fiber A cats and everything in between. A ball park rating system is good enough... You are not going to get a portsmouth rating for a log canoe!
Catamaran's have a much bigger stake in a TIMELY and ACCURATE handicap system. We use portsmouth in the same way that big boats use PHRF. Key West serves as a PHRF national championship. It's so important that the major PHRF handicappers arrive at a consensus PHRF rating just for the Key West event. Catamarans use Portsmouth in the Alter qualifiers for our national championship. Catamaran racing needs a handicap system that is timely and reasonably accurate and includes the one off designs that go racing.
2) No authority is needed ... We don't need permission from anyone. If the US multihull committee decided to sanction a measurement rating system in addition to Portsmouth we could move forward. The US Multihull committee would need to appoint some official measurers who would follow the ISAF and Texel standards for recording the basic data. We would have a workable rating table for ISAF and Texel ratings within a month. Hell... we would have roses and kisses from Scooby if we actually weighed a Nacra F17! Racing clubs would choose their own path.... just as they choose to move from Herb Malm's rating system to USPN's rating system many years ago.
The Alter cup Committee would also have the option of choosing a rating system or leave it up to each area to decide... Again... it's the Organizing Authority 's call to decide how the Alter cup qualifier is run.
What's needed in 2009 is for the Multihull council to move forward with bringing the US only designs into the existing Texel and ISAF measurement tables and give their good house keeping seal of approval to the underlying measurements. This is a proper role of the US mulithull council.
They also need to standardize on the boat class naming system so that rating tables can be used interchangeably by the scoring packages. (H16 versus Hobie 16 versus Hobie 16 no spin)
Portsmouth won't go away and no overlord will tell your club what to do with your race. Just like you may now choose to use windspeed adjustments, or allow weight adjustments for crew size for your current events. You will still be asked to turn in your race data to the Portsmouth committee.
