Dave....are you the reactionary to anything US Sailing or just the conventional one design nazi and opposed to all handicap racing in general.. I get the frustration with unrelated past US Sailing issues... but .... its time to let it go. I have punted on getting you to see the value of handicap racing in a dying sport.

um to the point... ... Of course you care about the Sanction of US Sailing.. If you go to Steeplechase with your ragged out N17 half baked foiler... You have no rating. So... you now get to race under the Rick White Steeplechase modified PN system. He does his best to make up a rating... BUT the fact that your N17 regatta budget includes buying drinks for Rick White to discuss your rating does raise some questions in the minds of others..

US Sailing is not going to sanction the N17 rating. EVEN IF they have a perfect crystal ball and can guess the exact fair rating for the half baked POS N17.

So...Do you care about the Rick White handicap system? probably not.... do the competitors in the Steeplechase care?... perhaps. Why race if you don't have 100% buy in to the rules?

The fact that they could see you at the bar buying drinks for the handicaper is not what transparency means.


The whole point of a national rating system is that for good or bad... It is sanctioned and transparent in following the design rules of the rating system..

Perhaps I should remind you of when we had alter cup qualifiers...eg somebody cared about the final results... and the rating based on bad data gave you a really high F16 rating relative to the fleet. Suddenly Bob Curry and others demanded a modification. And so it was done ...
Bottom line... this was not portsmouth.... we PHRFd the rating to make it fair for the fleet.


The integrity of the tables... YUP... I did write that with a straight face... I participated in guestimatting ratings for things like the F16. We did not follow the PN system....because we had no quality data... (and I doubt there is a uniformly good set of data to date). Did we know what we were doing... YUP!!! we punted on the transparency of the handicap system to meet the demand of a fair table for the upcoming Area D qualifier


The new foiling boats make this approach a bridge too far.

The choice is simple.... don't race the new boats under US sailing Portmsouth handicap. Make up a local rating....eg.. The Rick White Steeplechase Rating system...Transparency means that you sort it out at the bar with plenty of drinks at hand...and tell the competitors what the rating will be....
or change to a more robust handicap system.


So...I agree with the PN committee to tell you to buzz off unless you have race data of at least 25 buoy races from a fleet of at least 5 boats competing against a fleet of 5 yardstick boats. if you give them that data... they will give you a provisional rating... This is what I mean by preserving the integrity of the PN table.

otherwise... go make it up on your own a Steeplechase rating system and let the competitors know what the deal is before they sign up for the race. Stop supporting the whining about US sailing not doing what you want...