Question



are weight adjustments use common in the Portsmouth scoring system?

in other word: what is the percentage of races in US under Portsmouth which use weight adjustment versus the ones which don't.



Thanks for your response.

Where we sail they are used. I sailed the RTI and sailed at combined crew # of 410. My min. is 315. Just a little over.I failed to remember to take that mod.My feeling is it would be very common.



Mike

Hello



Three major distance races use the weight correction system of portsmouth.



The Statue of Liberty race (has for years), the C100, and now apparantly, the RTI race. These ratings are easy to modify for crew weight since the DPN or non windspeed rating is used.

I don't know about the NE 100



I don't believe the Mug race, Hogsbreath orSteeple chase in the Key's use the weight adjustments. Rick White is opposed to weight correction and he is running several of these events.





Triangle racing is another story.

Colin has a modification planned for Sailwave that would allow an easy adjustment of the rating numbers in the program. For now, you must caclulate the ratings for all 4 windspeeds and enter this rating as a seperate entry into the database for your weight level... eg Heavy 3. Weight adjustments for the triangle races become a pain in the butt to use. OCRA uses weight adjustment in all of their racing... CRAC leaves it up to the PRO for the event to decide.



Effective use of the weight ajustment system is waiting for modifications to the Sailwave scoring program AND for registration forms to require crew weight data.



Mark Schneider

Thanks for your responses



Actually I am considered as race program organiser for my club and looking for a way to make scoring faster and less tedious.



I was trying to find out how to integrate these weight adjustments in the sailwave software and here is the answer!



Do you think these modifications will be available soon?



thanks again

The Multihull Council of US Sailing has backed away from the use of weight modification factors for heavy crews and have the following statement with the Portsmouth tables:

"Allowances for heavy crew weight are offered for local fleet racing but are not recommended for use at divisional levels, regional levels or above."

Mary,

Do you know the reasoning behind US Sailing backing away from the use of weight modification factors for heavy crews? It’s one more problem for the race committee, but maybe fair to the competitors, especially in distance races. I think we should support one policy in all level of racing (fat guys in or fat guys out). What do you think?

Hello Mary,



Are you making a specific point about the use of weight corrections?

iI so, I would be interested in your point of view and reasoning.



Mind you, The politics and vigorous discussion underlying that USPN disclaimer were robust. The language used allows fleets to decide their own fate.



No one doubts that weight and its distribution on the boat are critical factors in a boats performance (compare an F18 with an F18HT for a simpleminded comparison). JIm Boyer noted that the Taipain 4.9 was designed to specifically address the crew weight range.. he wrote



" We chose the 2.34m width of the Taipan 4.9 m for many reasons, the most important was that by keeping the boat a little narrow it would give an advantage to the heavier crews which we hoped would offset the lighter is faster characteristic of most catamarans"



A quick look at the teams racing at this years Statue Races (70+ ) boats leads to the observation that a majority were racing over their class minimum's and used a correction factor.



My point... few teams actually racing are able to hit their boats minimum. For many of these boats this minimum is actually the optimum weight to race the boat (See Boyer). Weight adjustment schemes level the playing field when you cannot adjust your sails and rig and still remain class legal.



The facts of life are:

Weight matters a lot..

It matters even more if you can't adjust your rig and sails as per class rules.



In handicap racing, the goal is friendly competition and anything that promotes this ideal should be encouraged.



Take Care

Mark

Mark-

I agree with your point: "It matters even more if you can't adjust your rig and sails as per class rules."

One problem is how does one distinguish between the classes where this IS permissible and those where it is NOT (and then of course you have boats who specifically "go around" the one design class rules when racing in "open" regattas)? I think that is one reason it is hard for a Committee to "fairly" implement weight corrections "across the board" and you get into the whole issue of crew weighing too. I think far more people are disadvantaged by sailing with "fat" boats than heavy crews and yet there is no "compensation" for that yet to me it's even more "unfair" that someone with a 480 lb. H 18 at minimum crew weight should have to use the same PN as someone on a 400 lb. H 18 that's 20 lbs. over "minimum crew weight"-



Just some thoughts-



Kirt

Hi Kirt



I have two quick points.



Unirigs are excluded from crew weight correction. You don't have the logistical problem of rounding up a crew in order to create a team and you weigh what you weigh (Diet or not.... its your choice) you don't have to depend on the availablity of small or large crew to be competitive on your boat.



The current system of percentage over minimum fails miserably because the unirig optimum sailing weight are well above the class mandated minimums. Consequently, If you use a weight correction for a uni sailor... the sailor at the optimum weight will be given a Portsmouth BONUS.... This is not the spirit of the system. Some uni's don't have minimums to base the scheme on either.



The major unirig classes are the H17, the N5.5u, the A cat and the I17R/FXone classes. Only The A cat handles weight ranges with a reasonable scheme. The other boats are manufacture one designs and either you fit the boat or you don't.



Heavy boats (or Old sails). Yes... these are tremendous liabilities. However, they are correctable with the purchase of new equipment in racing shape. I think that this factor in small boat racing is very different then the factor that you and your wife are 40 lbs heavier on a Hobie 16 then all of the fast Hobie 16's. You can't sell or trade in the crew here. Well prepped boats in racing shape should perform better then recreational beaters and that is part of the game that a team can control.



While one could conceive of a system that normalized boats with appropriate corrector weights. (for weights above the class spec.). I think that this is beyond the scope of a handicap system.



I will dig up some of the valid critisims of our existing scheme. EG... modern hull shapes (Inter, Nacra 6.0) carry weight bettern then older designs... eg Tornado, Dart, Hobie 16 etc. However, The theoretical limitaitions are not really seen in the real world and the system works well (EG the statue race). I attribute this to the fact that the current system does not correct to 100% parity.



This is a worthwhile discussion.

Take Care

Mark

I am not making any point at all. I was just responding to the original poster who started this thread, because it sounds like he is in Europe and wants to know what is being done here. So I was just quoting him what is apparently the position of our governing body -- or at least of the Multihull Council. No editorializing or opining. Merely a statement of fact. I know that the weight modification was originally done on a trial basis, and apparently the Portsmouth Committee decided not to push it. You would have to talk to somebody on the Portsmouth Committee, probably Darline Hobock, to find out why.



Obviously, of course, the weight modifications, if used, would only apply to boats that have minimum crew weights designated by their class associations. Outside of the Hobie classes and the Performance Catamaran classes, I don't know how many, if any, other classes do this.

The Ohio Catamaran Racing Association uses the Portsmouth crew weight adjustments in all of its sponsored races (five this year). It works well with little additional effort. OCRA also use the windspeed adjustments.

Hi Mark,



Can you email with the details of the requirement JIC I've got it all wrong... Thanks.



Colin J

www.sailwave.com

colin@sailwave.com

Sorry, I misphrased the end of my post -- I did not mean "do this," as far as using weight modifications. I meant "do this" in terms of having class-designated minimum weights.

Mike, do you know how many other classes have minimum crew weights besides the Performance, Hobie and Mystere? In fact, I do not think the Hobie Wave has a minimum crew weight, does it?

And if you have a mixed Portsmouth fleet including some boats that have minimum class crew weights and some that do not, how could you use the weight modification factor? Actually, I thought the weight modification factor was meant to be used primarily in one-design classes to help equalize the boats.



And, by the way, most of the Performance Catamarans are sold in Europe, and Jack Young once told me that over there they do not have a minimum crew weight assigned for the Inters and Nacras -- the factory is only required to designate a "maximum load-carrying capacity."

Jacques,



One of our fleet members, Mike Fragale, has created an excell spreadsheet which can be used for scoring races and will accomidate weight ratings as well as various sail adjustments which can modify basid portsmouth ratings (including wind speed). His program is available on his web site or directly from him.

Hi Bob,

Maybe someone that has used Sailwave software could add to this post, but from my brief review this is much more than an excel spreadsheet. The posting feature (our web site could be updated soon after the race), auto updates, pop up menus and you can enter data by just selecting or entering a sail #. Looks very cool and it appears to be free.

See ya

Jon

What I like in SailWave is that you can memorize the entire fleet , set up some differents combination depending who sail with who, and then create the series well in advance for the whole season (not a last minute or "on the beach" data entry). The output also are great, so I see there a great way to improve scoring, format and availability of the results. Note that at the megas they are using sailwave as well.

It looks like that weight correction will be integrated soon, so we could have a lot of flexibility.

Hi Mary, You use weight modification factors for any class that has a minimum crew weight restriction. If a class has none, then you do not apply the modifications because you cannot use something that does not apply. There are any number of reasons why a class may, or may not, choose to have minimum crew weights.



These mods are part of the Portsmouth Handicap so they do not apply to one design racing. By definition, you race boat for boat and do not need or use handicapping because each boat is the same as the other and no design differences have to be taken into account.



One reason the Wave class has no weight minimum is that we allow open sail design; as long as the sail measures within established limits you can have a fuller shape for the big boys and flatter shapes for the little folk.



Carol switched to Sail Wave scoring this season and, after becoming familiar with it, reports that it is very versatile and easy to use. She gives it two thumbs up! It does allow easy use of the crew weight mods.

Hi Jaques



One other way to handicap sailing races of different types of craft is to use individual handicaps for each in your sail club based on their own times .

It is the same concept used in many other sports like golf for example .

Av their first few times ,-apply to to a scale , as each wins they recieve added handicap , this allows new winners each week based on their individual improvement over the season .

What better way to encourage new and younger sailors to get involved and compete rather than ---{fat sailors } very difficult to understand this one ,--some designs of catamaran have so much sail area now along with huge spin area that they favor heavy teams ,-Current I-20 teams weigh 360 av -last years natl.champs were an approx, 400 lb team finishing 2nd this year .



The mindset to allow some an advantage while inadvertantly desciminating against others ,--in this example a weight rule which favors heavy teams while penalizing youth sailors ,younger teams ,-and female partisipation , among others ,-all of which may not have other physical attributes of the heavy teams are in fact discouraged over time by this type of weight rule advocated by P rating .



Plan to use this type of individual handicap system locally next season , -hope to have lots of younger sailors involved , have 4 of my own , so we already have our own class and fleet .



Sail safe -

have fun

Carl

The problem with not applying weight mods. to boats without min. crew weights is when you have a boat that is a two person boat being sailed single handed. We have a dart 20 that has over size main and jib and is being sailed single handed at the local races. After the hits for the sails what would be the hit for single handing? If I were to sail my Mystere 6.0 single handed should I get hit just because the class has a min. weight?

My feeling is a boat that is a two person boat and is being single handed should suffer a penalty similar to that of over size sails.

Any thoughts?



Mike