I feel I should clarify this point a bit. The assumption about skill level pertains to the first Tornado, first Mossie and first F18 in one race. The "depth of talent" in the class does not directly factor into the ratings. (Indirectly, a deep class could be expected to develop the boats performance to its fullest)

So a race with Bundock on a Tornado and Asby on an A cat and another international sailor on a Mossie will give you a decent data set. A race against Asby with myself on the Tornado will be tossed out because Asby will finish so far ahead of me that the software will toss it as an outlier.

Wouter has frequently noted.. Many one design races are rarely actually being decided within the margin of error of a handicap system so much of the debate is just bar talk with little quantitative data to support the arguments.

We know that factoring in wind speed is also important in sorting through the non linear performance of the wide variety of boats and the measurment systems now recognize this. 2005 Texel now issues a trapping... non trapping rating

Finally, a few other assumptions are also at work including. Your boat is in good racing condition... eg... you have good sails and a boat at weight. (Not a 10 year old boat and sail combo)

Second, The shift to windward leeward courses from the old Olympic course with a reach and upwind finish also impacts the spins, nons spins and unirigs ratings and this has not been really factored into the ratings of all of the boats on the course (especially the older designs. Again, who knows what the magnitude of this factor is.

Third, conditions remain constant for the duration of the race.

Lastly, comparing a Yardstick (Vic or USPN) rating to a measurment rating (Isaf or texel)does not indicate any terrible injustice. The Mossie is the first one I have heard of in a while (besides the US F16 rating)

Listening to the debate, It does not sound like the Mossie number is far off its actual fair rating.

Since, I trust every sailor will bench mark their performance against sailors with identical boats. They will know that they were the 3rd Tornado With Bundock and Forbes first and Hagarra Second and themselves third...The scorekeeper might even print out those results.

The real race for the weekend is against their buddy on an F18 on handicap since he puts in the same amount of time training as you do... (read NONE) and has the same amount of experience.

Large fleets with bands of competitive sailors are much much better then a small one design fleet where you probably could write down the results before hand.

Take Care
Mark