I thought a little while about how to answer your points. Wether I should wait and see how the others would react or not. Wether I should explain things fully or just give an alternative view and see what the following discussion produces.
I think I will choose to present an alternative view and see how the others react.
About the "simplification" of the Mainsail and Jib rule: If it were just a simplification, no problem. But it isn't..
In this post I will try to explain why I personally regard it to be a simplification rather than something else.
Your proposal allows more sail area then with the current rules. The mainsail can be 15 m^2, whereas the old one had to be 14.85^2. (both with 8m luff length.)
Sure even 1 sq. inch can be regarded as to much more than the current setup but that is not the point. The true criterium should be wether the difference is in any way significant. While you are theoretically correct in what you say I will support my claim by showing how small the net effect is.
Also it must be realized that the values and structure are independent. We can just change the 15 into 14.85 and so on and come back at exactly the same situation as the current rules. So what are we really talking about is the true performance different between :
Exact interpolation (exact simplification) :
Mast & mainsail area = 14.85 sq. mtr. - 1.16279 * (mainsail luff length - 7.999 mtr.)
Jib area = 3.649 sq. mtr. - 0.082 * (jib projected luff - 5.50 mtr)
Proposed simplication (rounded numbers)
Mast & mainsail area = 15 sq. mtr. - 1.15 * (mainsail luff length - 8 mtr.)
Jib area max 3.7 sq. mtr.
Ofcourse I could not round anything downward as that could make former compliant sails uncompliant after the simplification so I round all upward with the exception of the factor 1.16279 But that is because of rounding up 14.85. Thus the factor was freed and could be rounded either way. 1.15 was easiest and closest, so ... Although 1.2 is also still a candidate. Actually 1.2 appears to be a better number than 1.15 in the simulations. It is more balanced around 15x8 and has a flatter dependency. Anyway let me stop here before I do a Wouter on you guys.
Clearly the second set has a more inviting look and feel and calcs can even be done by head in the second case. So I would venture that teh second setup wins points in this respect. This leaves the inequality that may be caused as the deciding factor and so the remainder of this post will deal with that.
So what is the difference or if you will the error/inequality ?
So lets look at the difference between 14.85 and 15 sq. mtr.
When we punch in ONLY this difference than the Texel rating changes by 0.26 points or 0.26 * 36 = 9.36 second per hour racing.
So maybe the difference from 14.85 to 15 sq.mtr appears big in fact it is only projected to make a 9.36 second difference per hour bouy racing when all other things like crew skills and wind along the course, tacks etc are perfectly equal.
I venture that this is to small a difference to decide to use numbers with 2 and 4 decimals in the F16 class rules. It is to small a difference to decide against the simplification with rounded numbers.
If the difference had been a minute or more than yes it would have been unacceptable but 9 seconds ... ? I move to declare that neglectable.
The jib can be 3,7 ^m, whereas the old one had to be 3.65 ^m. (both with a 5.5m luff length.)
I am comparing your own examples on the F16 website.
You can't ignore these changes, almost all the current F16 sails would would be smaller than the new rule allows.
True. The difference in area is equal to adding 9 mm (about 1/3rd inch) to the leech of the jib.
But more importantly. the jibs on F16's with superwing masts now appear to have 5.2 to 5.3 mtr projected luffs that allow 3.67 and 3.66 sq. mtr. jibs. So we would risk banning these jibs if we decided on 3.65 in the rule over 3.7 sq. mtr. In such a case we would have to ban all jibs that are not 5.5 mtr long in the projected luff right now; which is probably the majority at this current time.
Also the 0.082 dependency is FAR to small to matter. The 0.05 sq. mtr. difference between a 4.9 mtr luffed jib of 3.70 sq. mtr. and a 5.5 mtr luff jib of 3.649 sq. mtr. is just to small to matter in any significant way. If we compare the two in the Texel handicap system than this difference results in a 0.12 point drop in the rating OR 0.12 * 36 = 4.32 second difference per hour racing.
Therefor "max 3.7 sq. mtr." felt like a simply and safe boundery without any significant drawbacks.
So I'm neither ignoring the differences nor am I unaware of the differences. Again, I do not claim that the numbers are perfectly equal just that the difference is just neglectable (or that other word I can't remember how to spell).
I repeat for clearity ; the (small) increase in jib area is equal to a 4.32 sec speed increase per hour of bouy racing (according to Texel system).
I wish to put forward that this is too small a change abandon the jib rule simplification.
So if we look at the combined result than we see that the simplification results in 9.36 + 4.32 = 13.68 seconds = less than 14 seconds per hour bouy racing increase in speed.
So yes, you are right the simplification allows slighly bigger sails but the increase is so small that it performance boost is less than 14 second per hour racing. I claim this to be too small to matter. I'll claim that 14 seconds/hour is a very acceptable price to pay for a significant simplification of the F16 rules.
Besides, it would also change the rating; Both ISAF and TEXEL would rate the F16 1 point faster. I think we have already a hard time competing against the F18, this makes it even worse.
Geert you omit the fact that the F16 rating under Texel system dropped from 102 (=F18) over the past years to 103 with the introduction of Texel version 2005. So yes with the simplification the F16 Texel rating will become 1 point faster but only with respect to the new 103 Texel 2005 rating (several weeks old). Not with respect to the Texel rating we had for the last couple of years. The end result therefor is that the F16 rating will stay at the F18 rating of 102 as it always has been since late 2001.
So the NET result is a continuation of the situation of the past 4 years. So in this respect nothing changes.
I also would like to comment specifically on the claim that "we" already have a hard time competing against the F18's. I hear this comment more often but I think it is totally false to blame the boats for this. The skill in the F18 class is just very high and our own skill is just way below that. We are discussing here a rounded off Texel system swing of 36 second per hour while both you and me are getting beaten by the first F18's by 15 minutes per hour racing and more. We can't even correct out ahead if we would use the Hobie 16 without a spi rating (=117)! So don't blame the boat or the ratings; lets blame ourselfs. We, as crews are simply no where near good enough. Even to such an extend that those 36 second per hour won't make any difference what so ever. We are still 864 second per hour (= factor 24 !) away from sailing at the boats full potential. In laymans terms ; If we were sailing on F18's ourselfs we would be at exactly the same rear guard places as with our F16's. And sailors like Matt and Gary seems to be very capable of hanging level with F18's and sometimes even I-20's. It is us Geert, we need to get our act together.
For me there is no real reason to change the current rule.
I'm sorry but while your stance is fully understable as a consumer and participant it does not not carry more weight than the requests by sailmakers and the efforts of our competition to make us look complicated.
The simplication is an answer on the request of three different (professional) parties and several private owners who mentioned that they felt the sail area rule was too complex and confusing.
I admit that like you I have no problems understanding formulae and using calculators but I do understand that other persons may have a different perspective.
You need a calculator anyway to know your "rated" sail area, or use the on-line calculater on the f16 website.
That is not true. The concept of rated sailarea has been completely removed from the proposed rules, therefor no rated sailarea calculation is necessary. Also in the proposed setup all calcs can now be performed from the head or using a pen and paper. This was a major component of the simplification.
And of course in addition the F16 rating is placed back at the F18 rating were it has been since 2001 and were it belongs.
Wouter
P.S. I can tell you that Bard and I finish, what felt, close behind an F18 which we had been neck to neck for the whole race and we when checked the results it turned out that even the small time between us was more than our 103 (texel 2005) rating could correct out over. You won't believe how close you need to be to the guy in front of you to be able to correct out over him with just 1 rating point difference.
