Nope. Their goal is create a racing organizational body that will allow racing between "high performance" sail boats. The ratings things is their way of making that happen. But if you've ever been involved with scoring and handicap systems I believe they are sadly mistaken as to how it will work out.

First, they are taking the US Sailing base DPN numbers and converting them to PHRF for your rating. Claim is that Portsmouth only rates the boats - but anybody who knows about Portsmouth knows that the numbers are indeed affected by the crews sailing the boats. Also, anybody who's sailed Portsmouth knows you need the wind corrections to make it work better - no wind corrections in XS.

Even though Portsmouth rates both monos and multis, I doubt that the numbers are going to provide for fair boats on the same course racing, especially with out the wind corrections. Maybe after a few years of data is processed in US Sailing (so this would be a good thing to gather that data). But the differences in how monos and multis react to different wind speeds will make this useless without wind corrections.

And the goal of removing the politcal aspect of PHRF rating boards will only be replaced by the politics of members voting on ratings changes. And the one thing that PHRF does well, which to capture that different designs perform differently in different venues due to the design's strengths and weaknesses is lost with their "simpler system".

The following link is to their ratings page, where they state right up front they are not a ratings organization. But they will have a system to vote changes in ratings. Which makes them an organization that maintains ratings. Which is it? Do they think their voting will go to US Sailing to change the PNs, or will they maintain their pile of converted ratings, thus undermining the original concept of their rating system a bit? Will they re-vote on ratings and adjust when US Sailing posts the yearly updates?

XS Racing Ratings Page

On last quibble - their site looks like they stole Sailing Anarchy lock, stock, and barrel.

The whole thing comes off as an attempt to create a new org because they were banned from existing orgs, and creating a new site because they get criticized on SA for being capsize-happy (and ripping off the format of that site).

Although that all sounds very negative, I wish them luck. An org that caters to the hotter boats might bring about some excitement. But I think the things they are proposing display a lack of experience with the very type of thing they are trying to create.