I just went through the texel numbers like I do on a regular basis, just to keep myself updated. And there I found to my astonishment that the fastest Eagle Cat is rated a good four points (85) faster than the M20 (89), making it by far the fastest cat around. How come the Eagle cat has not received more creds around the world? Is it just too damn expensive? Looking at the technical numbers compared to the M20 it should not really be that much faster:
THE EAGLE 20 CARBON
Technical Specifications:

Length: 6,10 m / 20 feet
Beam: 3,00 m
Mast Length: 10,3 m
Main Sail Area: 19,25 sqm
Jib Sail Area: 4,80 sqm
Spinnaker Sail Area: 28 sqm.
Weight (with spinnaker): 145 kg
Hull Construction: Carbon/Epoxy Sandwich

The M20 is 30 kgs lighter, has the same length, the same beam and the same sailing area as far as I know. So is it up to hull design then? Or has the M20 just been poorly sailed in texel over the few years it has been around?

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Regards Jimi

Texel is a calc based rating system. Standard of sailing is an irrelevance.

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).

hi! in my day I would have considered myself ot be an "upper mid pack" sailor. Only rarely have I been beaten in a distance race by a boat with no jib.

No. What Scooby says is IIRC correct. Past results were used to design a spreadsheet of measurements that could be used to predict ratings for any future boat, not just those that had competed in Texel. ergo; Texel is a calculation based rating system.

I believe Texel only used results from Texel to calculate the results (however, I am not certain about this - Wouter will probably know)