Box & Formula Rules and Classes

What if Spartacus had a fully armed F 16?

No... you need to read this again.

All of that stuff is noise... the rules bias illustrates just how off you can be... (calculate boat length and speed of going from first to 10th to get the magnitude of the time lost just to rules noise) The more noise... the more data you need to average it out so that you arrive at the ACCURATE RATING... that's a unique problem for Portsmouth alone. BUT..

PHRF and SCHRS don't have this issue... The rating table is generated a different way. YET they still limit the decimal points in the rating tables. Why? Why don't they choose to use more decimal places for an accurate and highly precise ratings table? Answer, Because the noise also exists in every race that would be processed.... you won't average out this noise. So, You don't use a micrometer to measure a meter.

Bottom line... a rating system can be very accurate... but it won't be very resolving (precise). Go race one design for that.

The tangential argument raised here is... the new sails ... while class legal, fully measured in etc etc are UNFAIR to the rest of the fleet. We are not getting an accurate rating from Portsmouth that is timely and fair. (hmm... where have I heard that before) THEREFORE we need a PHRF solution to make the game fair. (oops... off the cliff for me)

My point.. the small change would be a wild butt guess (per PHRF) AND the rating system simply can't discriminate boat performance differences that small anyway.

If you like the fairy tale of portsmouth... fine! ... don't change it.

if you like the politics of PHRF... fine! have at it with your fleet.

If you want a transparent and accurate rating system for beach cats... use SCHRS... the major distance races already do!

If the alter cup eliminations flipped to SCHRS... the country would adopt the measurement system. Most races would use a generic certificate just like we do now... it's class legal... its rating is Blah. Make changes.. go get it measured.... or measure it your self and we will use that rating. More important events... get a certificate.

Mike... I agree... the semantics of Box Vs Formula seems trivial to me.. I am happy with... there is a formula for crew weight... there is a formula for sail area... there is a box for the platform. We choose to call it Formula... you have a problem with that... speak to the hand.

The tangent was the mind blowing notion that we now take the buggered up portsmouth system... and HELP IT with PHRF like fixes. We already have a PHRF rating for the F16... You want to make things worse???

I also agree... the problem is very small these days... Only the Alter qualifier require a handicap race. As I said... the only two large handicap events in my world and those are for local bragging rights between OD fleets. The Pimpin Pumkin beer mug just ain't worth much.

Back in the mid 90's Jeremy McGrath was the absolute king of all things motocross and supercross. People considered themselves winners if they got second. I don't think I'd have any problem with taking second place behind any boat that justifiably took top position. <img src="<>/wink.gif" alt="wink" title="wink" height="15" width="15" />

My father used to say that racing was plain ol' stupid. It could easily be solved over coffee just by comparing bank statements. OD, or box rules doesn't change that. If I had the money and time to keep a boat in absolute perfect tune, my body in shape, and coaching to keep the skills honed it would be no different.

In response to Catandahalf's claim, A-Class head widths to foot length ratios on current competitive A-Class mainsails are in the 44% - 52% range (850mm - 1000mm head widths and 1,850mm - 1,900mm foot lengths) so we are not providing the

stoke

for anyone designing a mainsail with a 75% head width to foot length ratio. Higher aspect mainsails have been tried with not much success. Remember we even had a solid wing rig tried in 2007 beautifully done by Ben Hall and it was not competitive upwind due to an increased pitching moment.

Hi Mark,

You bring up a good point with the Alter Cup, those events need to be as fair as possible.

The problem is getting to the

as possible.

In the US, I don't see the support from the sailors for going to a certification program to handle a handful of events.

What might be more beneficial would be a better understanding of PN, and some better documented guidelines on how to manage races using PN (at least for the Alter Cup Qualifiers). That, coupled with better PR for the program, would probably help a lot.

Of course, there are other reasons (outside of ratings) that people don't attend Alter Cup Qualifiers in droves. The trend towards larger OD events is nothing to sneeze at when people have limited vacation time (leaving the economy out of the discussion).

Mike

...need to learn how to enclose photos...

FWIW - We did head and foot measurements today when we compared our Goodall F 16 mainsail with our new Schurr main.

The Goodall came out at 36.5

by 81

@ 45% of the foot length.

The Schurr came out at 47.12

by 80.75

@ 58% of the foot length.

ACat230's performance range, for sails competitive in A Cats, was cited at 44% - 52% or thereabouts.

Bottom Line.... according to explanations from Carl Reigart, USSA Portsmouth Chair and Dave Ingram, the head modifications are not subject to PN modifiers in accordance with the Rules for Portsmouth Racing, which are Class dependent. Class Rules are transcendent and not under regulation by the USSA PNY Comm. 'Box Rule' Classes must only maintain the same sail area to avoid a ML assignment (MN n/a). The International F 16 Class 'Box Rule' does not restrict head design or leech design.

ACat 230 was correct when he claimed that high aspects are unproven according to recent users.

I wonder what the head to foot ratio is on an AC 45 or Extreme 40. Thank Goodness we are not limited in our imaginations by backstays.

I stand to be corrected in order to become more enlightened.

Sail in Peace,
Bert

Hey Bert,

I didn't touch on this before, but what you just posted makes complete and total sense to me. The issue of the sail design (such as fat head mains) is totally a class rule issue. This is just one example of arms races that can happen in a box/formula environment, it's part of that game.

If someone has a problem with that, they need to take it up with the class (or find a different one), but

fixing

it via PN is a bad idea.

EDIT: Of course, if enough boats change to a much saster sail, then the PN would eventually adjust once sufficient race data is factored in.

Mike

Mike, and that's probably the single biggest complaint with DPN and why a measurement system appeals to so many. The amount of time it takes for the data to make an impact is far to long to be viewed as fair by most. The perception with a measurement system is as soon as a boat is measured and the number as assigned it's automatically the fairest number possible, and that's where the two schools of thought separate.

The best thing about handicap racing is eventually everyone discovers (regardless which system is used) it's a wild butt guess and consolidation of classes takes place.

Of course, if enough boats change to a much faster sail, then the PN would eventually adjust once sufficient race data is factored in ... in a land far far away where 10 F16's (with the new stuff) are raced against 10 F18's and 10 Hobie 16's by the top of the class sailor fairy's for 100 races... (20 regattas of 5 races each)....

May the portsmouth fairy's be with you!

There... fixed it for you.!

W T F???

Dave and Mark, you're totally twisting my point. I never said PN is perfect (or that I like it), in fact, I've reiterated in other posts above why no one likes it, but there are numerous reasons that it won't be fixed in the foreseeable future, so it's basically

good enough.

My key point in the last post was that PN can't deal with stuff that's allowed within class rules, and shouldn't be expected to. A F18 sailor who has old/out-designed equipment is in just as much jeopardy at a F18-class event (non-handicapped) as in the open event, so PN should NOT try to

fix

this.

I know, there's impact to sailors of other classes in open events, but go back to the last paragraph. Where's the support to change to a certification system in the US? As in, who is going to do it, and how will it impact attendance when people don't take the time to get certs?

Mike

Mike, I was not agreeing or disagreeing with your post I was just making a point based on your last paragraph.

As for the certification system working in the US, it will take a dedicated set of volunteers and an overall acceptance from the multihull community for it to work. Speaking from my experiences with enforcing the certification requirement for the 2010 F18 North Americans it took a fair amount of effort from a lot of people to make it happen and honestly I just don't see that level of effort taking place in the open class. I could be wrong... I've been wrong once before.

Mike... not twisting or agreeing with your point that PN should not mess with class rules. ( I certainly agree)

Just making the point about data (none) and time (forever).

Sorry Dave
The issue of certificates is a red herring. It is completely dependent on what kind of race is called for. (How many F18 boats were tossed for not measuring in)

The vast majority of boats are stock legal class boats that have a Portsmouth number AND a SCHRS number. No difference in race management.

Modifications to Stock boats. in PN they are declared for most races and adjustments are made at face value by you the owner and you report your rating.. in Measurement world... if you made changes... you must make the measurements your self and adjust your rating yourself and use it when you register..Many calculators and spreadsheets exist. No difference to race management

For races like the Area qualifiers where something more then a trophy is at stake... no change would be needed either.
These races do not allow boats with modification to race in Portsmouth Area championships now.. In measurement world... you could enforce the same rule.. boats with modifications are not allowed. NO difference to race management.

OR... you could raise the bar and allow boats with modifications who have a valid certificate. (It's the owners problem and ISAF approved measurement people are available and for a fee will give you a documented rating certificate)

I never get why people think its such a big deal to switch.

There really isn't that much of need for anything more then what I describe above.

Have you made the switch to SCHRS or Texel in your area? If not, why not? You don't hold a US Multihull Championship Semi-Final in your area so there shouldn't be anything standing in your way.

OK.

I think this has been brought up before, but has anyone actually gone through a year's worth of regattas and recalculated using the proposed systems to see if it really made any difference?

And, how does using SCHRS with

no modifications

solve the problem of the changing sail designs for the box classes? If the new designs are class legal, where is the requirement to adjust the number?

Further, would any OA really want to have to send a boat home if they had a mod that doesn't meet class rules? Some Hobie fleets struggle with this debate over new guys without Comptips. In that case, it's a question of class culture, which probably wouldn't exist in an open event.

I really don't have a dog in the fight, but I think the jury is still out on whether this is an actual problem, that there are enough events where this would matter, that enough people agree it's an actual problem worth the time and effort to change, and whether any of the proposed solutions (changes) would

fix

more problems than simply changing would create (unintended consequences).

Mike

Bingo!

I think we all hear you Mike. Short of an Alter Cup style of event, there is no perfect rating system. As you pointed out within semi-development box rule classes, all boats are not equal. It even occurs with SMOD boats (different age, sail and manufacturing quality control..etc) However, we stive to get it close enough such that it is the sailors that make the difference. The best system would be variable modeling from a large database of current results amoung all of the active boats, sailors, and conditions; ie: Portsmouth's goal. No such luxury though and thus theorectical models (Texel & SCHRS) exist in addition to Portmouth. Pick your poison.

Does anyone beyond North America use Portsmouth? Eventhough SCHRS is promoted by the ISAF, is it employed outside of the UK and Down Under?

Kris, I'm not aware of anyone outside US that uses PN (maybe Canada?). I think the database is managed by USSA volunteers. Does anyone else know?

Seriously, this is not April Fools:

The more I think about this, Mark does raise some good points, and there are other issues that have been brought up as well (new boat designs, etc.). While I'm not sure how perfectly any system can deal with this right away, there may be something to that.

I'm trying to look at this with an open mind to all sides. I truly don't care how this turns out (i.e. which system

wins

), but if there is a better way to do this, maybe we should look at it.

We could form a working party to investigate further. Make a list of pros and cons of each system (research and input from users of the non-US systems), research the desires of the sailors (what would make them show up vs. stay away), what would be most fair (admittedly a subjective topic), do some data comparisons, etc.

Then, we could present it to the MHC for a vote.

Possibly the most important thing to do coming out of this is to really beef up the PR value of the system that wins. We know that no system is perfect, but we should focus on the advantages of the system that is ultimately chosen.

Of course, if no one thinks this is important, and the effort should be spent elsewhere (raising attendance at cat events in general, including OD events), then a case could be made not to take up volunteer time to fix something that is a really low priority.

Mike

Mike, the Portsmouth Committee does not answer to the MHC, even if we take a vote it can only be presented to the Portsmouth Committee as a recommendation. At the end of the day it's the Portsmouth Committee's decision.

As for presenting a new system, those wheels were put in motion last year.

Mr. Schneider can you give us an update of where you are with this effort?

I also want to emphasis again, no regatta is required to use DPN except the US Multihull Championship (Alter Cup) Semi-Finals. If an OA believes that their regatta would be better served by using something else they are free to do so. The only thing the OA has to do do is put the handicap system to be used in the NOR and it's done. This need for US Sailing to officially move away from DPN escapes me.

Dave, I and most other top sailors and race committees are with you.

Migrating to a certificate based system will require massive reformatting of the paradigm at all levels.

I recommend we proceed with the US Sailing Portsmouth Exhibition at the Gulf Yachting Association's annual multihull championship. After five races for the GYA prizes, we pluck the top two designs of each Class and have a Finals Race for the USSA Championship Title.

This approach will provide live data by top shelf sailors on the newer boats and sail plans.

...the OAK approach we have discussed with Kirt...

Dave, what I meant by vote was wheter or not to continue using PN, not to change the PN program. I would think that the Alter Cup qualifiers could be changed as well.

I thought there was some more serious discussion about this last year. But, like I've said all along, my sense is that the majority of the sailors don't want a change [insert reason(s) here]; however, that doesn't mean that Mark doesn't have good points.

Maybe we just need to put an official end to all this debate and get Mark to agree to let it go once and for all...

Mike

EDIT: BTW, I take serious issue with the notion that going to a no-modification or bring-your-own certificate system won't negatively impact event Race Management and OAs. Not because it isn't being managed well elsewhere, but I am very concerned about dealing with the inevitable sailors that refuse to comply, demanding to race or threatening to never come back. We really can't afford to be turning boats away, financially or politically.

I really don't think we could ever stop the debate and I really don't want too, at the very minimum it keeps people engaged in the process.

I for one need considerably more convincing that replacing DPN with another handicap system presents a 'more fair' result. The few times an event has gone to the trouble of running the results with multiple systems it has had little to no impact to the end result. Now if you want to talk distance races...

I'm not saying to end the debate cold-turkey. I'm saying to actually do the work to get agreement to at least accept one system or another (with all its weaknesses) and move on.

I'd be very interested to see what could actually help distance races (in terms of fairness), if anything. If a distance race is one-way, with a prevailing wind on your back the whole way, how do the numbers get affected when the wind is on the beam, or it becomes an upwind race?

I'd be shocked if any of the ratings systems differed by much on buoy courses, because they at least tend to be windward/leeward (although race management may theoretically affect the results by adding or removing reaching legs).

Mike

The Hawaiian Yachting Association was using a three - way system for PHRF racing from island to island and drop marks (600 ft. plus change). Gil Budar made a presentation at the USSA meeting in Denver - in '08 (circa). They have upwind ratings, downwind ratings, and drop mark base ratings. My report was on the theory of a wind - bracketed PHRF system based on the USSA DPN style adjustments.

The beach cat sailing takes place on Kanehoe Bay, and I have no idea what rating system they are using. I have never seen a more beautiful venue for cat sailing, and surfing North Beach on Kanehoe MCB was a real thrill.

They do not worry as much about ratings out there. They worry about close - out sets across the Ala Moana channel entrance to Ala Wai Harbor and Waikiki Yacht Club:-)

A little multihull luv and networking will pay off down the road if we play our cards well - Together!

Aloha - B

The Portsmouth Committee is irrelevant... The issue at hand is to replace the Portsmotuh Committee product with SCHRS. Of course they would oppose such a change.... They need someone other then DING to defend their work though... his heart is not really in it.

Yes!... thus the solo campaign to raise the issue.

Well you will be waiting for hell to freeze over... for such an argument!

TODAY... the tables of Texel, SCHRS and Portsmouth are more or less in agreement. Tomorrow... who knows what the portsmouth fairy will present.

The race results probably won't change much at all if we switched. (never have in my comparisons of race data ... once the F16 rating was PHRFd into line more or less)

The problem with Portsmouth... is that we must use PHRF to make up new boat ratings (F16 and nF20)... AND we don't have quality data to run the system. Bottom line... the current PN table is a good guess with a shaky basis.

So... if you believe that a non transparent rating system is good enough... (and they have good guessers). I would agree... why change anything.

Turns out the Alter Cup Committee is another independent committee. They can run the qualifiers anyway they wish... including picking the rating system.

What is the history of catamaran Ratings systems?

Back Back in the Day. Catamarans used NAMSA and not US Portsmouth for ratings. CRAM, CRAC, and Roten Pt (which had a huge display board with the ratings in their club house) struggled / fought internally over the switch. CRAC ran all of their own races and made the change to be in alignment with US Sailing and get in alignment with the rest of the sailing world. The creation of the US Sailing Championship and qualifiers pushed us into the USPN world.

USPN was 100% statistical ratings for ALL sailobats... NAMSA was solely run by and used Herb Malm's proprietary (secret) ratings formula for catamarans and then used race data to tweak the ratings.... (frequently). It worked as well as USPN and got to a fair rating a bit quicker.

So... what goes around... comes around if you wait long enough.. Now we use SCHRS and TEXEL formula's to get the rating for the nF20.... take that information and then PHRF (guestimate) it into the Portsmouth ratings table. However... With 2 boats racing in the US... Portsmouth simply can not work...

Take home points of the history lesson... Clubs simply had to choose what process they thought would generate fair ratings into the future.... USSPN won out with the addition of the Alter cup and qualifiers.

It is the same today... if the ONLY Handicap racing that is important chooses USPN.... that is what the majority of the country will fall in behind... Since YC's run all of our races these days... a change of systems needs a good house keeping seal of approval.

As you hinted at... Distance races which want to attract a few EU blokes....have switched to SHCRS. Why.... because its transparent... no back room best of intentions dickering on ratings.

Long report sent to JW last year

Again... remember what started this issue up again.... It was the idea that the PN ratings are unfair and we need MORE PHRF adjusting to the ratings....

This is easy to understand because the ratings are stuck without enough handicap racing to generate good data to adjust ANYTHING...

I always thought Dick Blanchard was the Godfather for open class sailing. I have seen him handscore all the races we ever had on Pensacola Bay for the NAMSA North Americans. That regatta was a real factory

Showdown

for a few years with up to seventy + boats in raging winds.

I believe Dick handed off the NAMSA ratings to Darline when he retired from NAMSA...??? Rick White would know the story, but it surely deserves to be recognized in the US Sailing Hall of Fame and historical collection.

What am I? Chop Suey?

I do admit though, I grow tired of my own repeated points to your repeated points.