Sail area to weight ratio of the A Class cat is 150 LB boat weight ,--av 150 LB crew ,--to a 150 sq ft sail area
Basically an av 2 to 1 -weight to sail area ratio ,--very fast
-The Inter 20 boat weight is 390 ,-+av crew weight 330 for a total av of 720 LB ,
Sail area of main is 208 ,-plus jib 53 = 262 sq ft.
The sail area to weight ratio is 2.75 ,--not nearly as good as the A Class cat .
In open racing with the two starting the same the A class cat often arrives at the A mark ahead .
The Inter has the added advantage of a 270 sq ft shute downwind ,and this sail area to weight ratio and coresponding performance changes dramatically .
Add a proportionally sized chute to the A Class cat in this sail area to weight ratio formula comparison and the race becomes very close and interesting again on the downwind legs.
If manufactures one design added a weight to sail area ratio factor for heavier boats and heavier crews as all Formula Classes do it would be much better ,-fairer sailing / racing.
-We have this opportunity in forming a Formula 20 Class ,
and can include all active racing 20 ft cats within the class and allow new cat designs to be created .
-Make your day a great one -
Happy Holidays
Carl
Colin Jenkins ,a U K catsailor developed SAILWAVE scoring system which has a free download .
The system can score races on all 3 accepted widely used rating systems ,
ISAF for cats ,--Texel ,--and Porthmouth .
Colin is adding a loop in the system to more readily compare various rating systems available ,-
and is also adding other features so we can all more readily understand elements of design ,
like sail area to weight ratios for example !!!!
this from Colin ,-from the old open forum -
I was looking at a set of handicap results a couple of weeks ago and decided that it'd be useful to get a feeling of how boats did relative to the winning boat, hence the E% and C% columns (please feel free to come with better names that are fairly short!). I also tweaked things such that if you enter a race distance (in a Edit+Race window) Sailwave will generate a column showing average speed. I'll add an 'achieved rating' column as well when I get the change. Any other stats you think may be useful, let me know... CJ