No, I don't think most agree that PN doesn't work. It has limitations on how well/fast it can issue numbers for new designs; otherwise, it's as good (or bad) as any other system.
Mike its BROKEN.... facts on the ground make it so.
The system is BROKEN when it simply can't turn the crank as it did 20 years ago and generate a current table.
It is broken when the underyling assumptions are no longer valid.
Assumption...
Boats contributing to the rating are in "racing shape" with "racing sails"
All of the boats in the dead boat society probably have dead sails and are not in racing shape. Reporting the results for you 25 year old prindle 16 with sunrise sails vintage 1984 won't help! BUT... the system includes these data and the the prindle 16 gets Slower over time... Really? IT IS BROKEN!
Assumption, Boats are actively racing in ONE Design Fleets AND they race in a handicap race to contribute to the data...
Fact of life... ONLY Hobie 14s, 16s, 17s, 18s, 20s, F18s F16s, Nacra 17s, A cats and Isotopes can make this claim.... (They hold a Nationals each year)
The rest of the ratings table should be FIXED in concrete but then you would have to declare the PN system BROKEN...... because now you are using PHRF discretion to set the ratings by freezing the dead boat society.
The active one design sailors rarely if ever compete in handicap... (Dave would rather poke out his eye then race handicap) so... the assumption that the top of the class racers SAILING THE BOAT to its max contributes to the rating is not valid... The SYSTEM is broken.
You also need a fleet of boats racing handicap... So... are two boats a fleet (M20).... is one boat a fleet (CFR20)... How many Nacra carbon 20s are racing? I think of a fleet as 10 boats... So did the PN committe years and years ago.
The reason is.... you don't want to have a class rating determined by one single individual. (it is his personal rating...)
Finally, you need valid data ie WL races with enough bench mark boats racing as a fleet eg more then one ..... to compare the hot new boat performance.. which also should be sailing as a fleet.
We simply don't have that much of this kind of racing anymore.
Portsmouth is dead! the 21st century killed it. It is most certainly broken.
Now... can you make up ratings and add them to the PN table using PHRF... Absolutely... but that is not Portsmouth.... that is a PHRF table for beach cats.
The PN committe can't make up data... and they understandably don't want to go down the PHRF rabbit hole... So... they drag their feet and wait till the multihull world generates a fleet of Flying Tigers who go handicap racing against Hobie 16s.. That is known as waiting for hell to freeze over.
Kaos restates my point... Sailors tell the OA what they want to race under... If you pick SCHRS... you get a sanctioned handicap system. If you pick Portsmouth/PHRF... you get a sanctioned rating system... If you just know that the N17 rating should be XXX then you get the Portsmouth/Phrf/ Race to nowehere rating system..
The difference is transparency!
There is NOTHING for US Sailing to do here..
If US Sailing wanted to help... they could kick in some money to have USA based ISAF certified measurers get the numbers for unique USA only designs and expand the table to boats unique to the North American market... EG Hobie 20s... Supercat 22s and so on.
With a budget of zero... the MHC probably is not a player here.
I won't write that proposal to US Sailing until I have more widespread adoption of SCHRS for handicap racing in the states.
