New ratings for F16 under ISAF/SCHR and Texel !



Well, it seems that I have gotten a contact into to the ISAF/SCHRS committee. It was via the UK Tornado fleet chairman but he assured me that he will forward my request to the right person. I have faith that in time, it is a burocracy afterall, the F16 2-up version will be corrected to 1.01 (=F18) under ISAF/SCHR. The two-up version will remain at 0.98


Texel :

Well, there is a reason why I strongly prefer the Texel system and no it is not because it is Dutch in origin. It is because they are very easy to contact, they are very open to suggestions and discussions and they are top of things when it comes down to making their ratings as fair as possible.

Just recently I was officially notified that the Texel committee has decided to introduce 2 modifications to the rule ; leading to the Texel 2006 version.

Pretty much they are correcting the inbalance that was caused by (lazy) Race committees who refused to used the 2 wind dependent rating numbers. For doublehanders this is not a problem as the two numbers are often the same or nearly the same. However the singlehanders were heavily disadvantaged by it ; Example; the A-cat was rated as 99 in light winds and 104 in strong winds. However the RC just ignored the high winds number and forced the A-cats to race of 99 in strong winds as well, which is entirely UNREALISTIC for even the best A-cats when the F18's were a at 102. We F16's suffered from the same problem as was discussed in this thread and other threads often.

The Texel committee saw this issue and they were often contacted by solo sailors who felt that such a practise was unfair to them. Texel committee looked at the problem and decided to go for a simple but very effective solution. Texel still calculates to rating numbers (light winds and high winds) for each boat BUT she average these into a single rating number. This means that :


F18 : light = 102 , high = 102 => average rating = (102+102)/2 = 102
A-cat : light 99 , high = 104 => average rating = (99+104)/2 = 101 (rounded of down)


Now the RC won't be able to screw the singlehanders over. Sure some 2-up crews will complain but that is just their problem. The singlehanders have been screwed for many more years in the past, now it is their turn to pay for the lazyness of the RC's.

However there is another chance as well. The spinnaker boats are now hit proportionally to the size of their spinnaker, instead of just a 4 point deduction. This is done by adding 15 % of the spi area to the rated sailarea of the jib and mainsail. This factor of 15 % also results in a higher hit for all spinnaker boats. Some boat get a hit of 6 points now(instead of the old 4). Other boats with relatively smaller spi's like the F16's remain at a 4 point hit or get only a 5 point hit. This means that the difference between a spi boat and the non-spi boat have been increased which is totally fair in my opinion.

So how does Texel 2006 look like :

It assigns one (averaged) rating to all designs.

Singlehanders

A-cat (no spi) = 101 ---(was 99/104)
F16 1-up (spi) = 100 ---(was 99/104)
FX-one 1-up (spi) = 105 ---(was 105/108)
Inter-17R 1-up (spi) = 102 ---(was 102/106)


Doublehanders :

F16 (spi) = 102 --- (was 102/102)
F18 (spi) = 101 --- (was 102/102)
F20 (spi) = 96 --- (was 96/97)
Tornado (spi) = 94 ---(was 94/94)

US I-20 = 95 --- (didn't have a rating under Texel 2005)
Hobie 16 = 117 --- (was 117/117)


The difference of one point under Texel 2006 between F16 and F18 is because the F16 is just rounded up and the F18 is just rounded down. In the unrounded numbers the two makes are very close together indeed, but if the rounding-off threshold runs right between these two unrounded numbers then you will see a difference in the ratings. Got a bit unlucky there. Under Texel 2005 there was only 101.97 (F18) - 102.10 (F16) = 0.13 point difference = 6 secs/hour between the two makes. Anyway, we are not going to do anything about this. I'm sure the F18 crews will be pissed, now we can just ride their tales to the finish line and win on handicap. Will put some extra pressure on the F18 crews ! Actually the same things probably happened in reserves to the 1-up F16 that has now rating = 100

But most important to us F16's is that the 1-up version and the 2-up version have gotten seriously closer to the F18 ratings and that is exactly what we are finding on the water. The difference between the 1-up F16 and the 2-up F16 has been reduced as well, and that is also good.

For us F16's the new Texel 2006 system is noticeably better overall.

Wouter