Last year Texel had two handicap numbers per boat (and an addition 2 for the optional spinnaker). Turns out Race Committee were to lazy to use then and so just decided to use the light weather rating for all conditions. So the double rating numbers was created to be more fair to singlehanders and boats optimized for either light winds or big winds and then next thing the RC's do is simply ignore it all together.

That didn't work, so Texel committee decide to just calculate the average of these two numbers and have that as a single rating for each boat. So now the A-cats have a peachy handicap in light winds and an equally disadvantagious handicap in the rough stuff (for example) and the RC's can't ignore it anymore.

In addition I think Texel 2006 saw a change in the way spinnaker benefits are calculated. These are now considered to make a boat more fast then before.

It is not perfect; but it is a good compromise.




That is about right, in my opinion.

I'm sure some wll bark at this, but then again alot of A-cat sailors seem to steer clear of open class regatta's for some reason, so how do they know ? In the results I've seen over the years in open class racing the F18's are in general about as fast as A-cats. They (the A's) have an advantage in the really light stuff but are slower in the heavy stuff as well. So on average they are about the same to F18's.

Wouter