As somebody who gets to deal with handicap systems on weekly basis during the sailing system, a few observations.
But up front, I'll agree that OD is better for attemping to achieve heads up racing. But, I still maintain that open class is one of the best way to bring new folks into the sport, simply because it can be achieved at a significantly reduced entry cost.
Anyway, Mark is spot on that bad mouthing the handicap systems is counter-productive. Yes, yes, yes, yes - we all know there is no such thing as a perfect handicap system. But, in reality, the Portsmouth system works pretty well especially if you use the wind corrections. But, when everybody sits around bitching about ratings they forget the biggest contribution to the boat's performance is the crew.
As Fleet scoring person and head cheerleader, I get to see this all the time. The biggest thing for me is to help people see ways they can improve their performance and "sail to their number". When people get on the "PN sucks" bandwagon, all they see is the numbers. They forget that they were slow tacking each time, that they went on a flyer when everybody else was in the middle, that they were late to the line, that it took them awhile to figure out they had some sail trim wrong. The answer I try to give people is to look at their performance and identify the areas they need to work on. When people are buying into the "it doesn't matter because the ratings suck" BS they become frustrated and drop out. This happens at the front and the back of the Fleet.
Interesting thing this year - the Taipan 4.9 in our fleet, being sailed by an excellent sailor, was crushing in the uni with spin configuration. He was sailing well, others were sailing well, but he felt his number was too high. He looked into it and petitioned me to use the rating for the F16 sloop. So we gave him that rating, and it was more fair. But he still won! One of the times beating the SC-22 the SC-22 skipper (our commodore and experienced at all this as well) lamented that the rating must still be wrong, because the numbers indicated that he needed to be a handful of minutes faster on the course, so something must be wrong. But then we looked at it. The 4.9 had sailed an excellent race. He (SC 22) had sailed a good race as far as start and picking the shifts, but admitted that his tacks were slow, as for some reason he and the crew were out of sync a bit. How much? Oh, about 5-10 seconds slower per tack. Adding them up for the number of tacks on the multi-lap course, and what do you know - it was just about the time difference for the win. If we had been simply bashing the ratings, two sailors would have stayed disillusioned and others would have caught the attitude.
In our area, the two one-design Fleets are A-Cat and Nacra-20. To play one-design you'll need to get into those costly and technical designs. You'll get people who were already sailors, and other cat sailors to join in. New people trying to figure out if this is something they want to try will be intimidated by that I think.
We've had so many people joining our ranks in boats they found for nothing, getting the bug and moving up to ignore. I'm one of them. Without an open class venue most would not have joined in. Some are now moving into the OD classes in the area - fantastic! So now I'm on the prowl for the next bunch of people who drug a Hobie-18 out of their neighbor's yard.
There was a race that used to be held in Ocean City called the Seacret's Cup. It was an open event, was great fun, and people in our area tried to do it when they could. Then it was changed to an OD format as a finishing race for the local series. Result was that none of us changed boats to be there, I think the race has since died. It certainly quickly fell from the event it used to be once the change happened. Still cherish the Mount Gay hat from that one...
So, mark me down as somebody who backs keeping an open class in events of all sizes!
