John
is it not to the contrary? The texel system is based on boat performance in the the race itself and is somewhat of a committee decision. It does reflect the average standard of a fleet. if you have a small fleet of talented sailors like the eagle 20 Carbon you will get hammered on texel handicap. If you have a large fleet mostly containing average sailors you will get a number that the hot guys will be able to win with
Paul
IIRC (and I'm sure Wouter will correct me) Texel was retorfitted on previous results to provide a measurement rule. (as was SCHRS).
Simply, you take the results (of the round texel race) over a period of time, look at the conditions at the time, look at who won (and maybe why), look at the boats and then come up with a measurement rule that you can then take forward.
With some tinkering along the way, you come up with a measurement based rule that can predict the performance of
boats and then provide a handicap as a result.
The rule does not handicap the sailor, it handicaps the boat (or attempts to). SCHRS works the same way.
If a boat comes along and appears to be a "rating beater" then the rule might be altered to take this into account. There have been a number of boats that have been touted as rating-beaters, but it has never happened (I believe).
