My opinion…

I agree. My first thought was to have the boats conform to the F18 rule to race Portsmouth, but making them buy sails for an occasional race doesn’t make sense for the light Tiger teams or the regattas they might not attend if forced to do so. (Racing F18 format events is completely different. They should conform to the F18 rules)

Because there are a large number of Tigers sailing One-Design primarily, I think a fixed One-Design rating makes more sense and without actual data, maybe it should be on the harsh side for the time being. Time will tell if it is correct. This looks like it would affect very few teams anyway.

But, lighter=faster? Not necessarily.

It appears that there is no shown advantage to sailing light on the Tiger and apparently no disadvantage to being heavy. There are some major regattas won by teams weighing in at around 360 pounds. Greg and Jacques weigh in at between 312-320. Other top teams are weighing in on the heavy side. We are not seeing the light teams having an advantage here.

I think it is likely a matter of hiking weight and strength that makes the heavier teams faster, so why the need to penalize a team for being light? This is not a Hobie 16 where it has been shown to be faster when sailed light, but even on a 16 there is a point where you need enough weight to be fast.

With more data, it may actually show that what we have seen in Tiger One-Design is true... the Tiger sails faster with a heavier team that can hold the boat down. In that case, the rating could just be the same as F18 and the sailors are already at a disadvantage by sailing the lighter Tiger Class weight.