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Rating game Structure in Anarchy
The problem is that the people that should be leading aren't and the ones that should have nothing to do with the process are ruining it. 1.
Leadership: the Rating and Race Organizers need to stand up and lead us
to a world in which we have a local rating system for weekend racers (PHRF
is fine), a regional system for the competitive racer/cruisers (IRC is
probably fine here), and a Grand Prix system to take the heat off the
other two rules. The simple fact is that we have gotten to where we are today because too many people believe that we should all get along. Fine, I'm all about world peace. But the reality is that we have spent way too much time watering good decisions down in a feeble attempt to gain "consensus" and ensure all parties are treated fairly. This, in turn, has created a situation in which precisely nothing has happened in four years. It's Like Déjà Vu All Over Again As many will remember the summer of 1992 was a heady time. We had just completed a good Admirals Cup the summer before. The two ton class and fifties had good, close racing. IOR MK V had just been voted out, to be replaced by a new approach to rating boats called IMS. Kenwood Cup had both an IOR and IMS fleet. The Commodore's Cup was new and had opted for IMS. I was at Kenwood that year. I was there when the first new crop of IMS boats arrived. Of course, some owners were complaining that the ratings weren't fair because at least one boat did not live up to the spirit of the "racer/cruiser' interior specs of IMS. That's right; IMS was a 'racer/cruiser' system. But wait, there's more: it was a secret rule back them. Hmm…..sound familiar? In August of 1992 Malcolm McKeag expressed the thought in Seahorse that: ""IMS is a rule for cruiser/racers". By November the tone had become more aggressive when John Roberson wrote: "Most of the criticism of the IMS rule at the Kenwood Cup was really aimed at Cookson's High 5… (and) was on the grounds that it was not within the spirit of the rule, with the finger most commonly pointed at the accommodation which, while not luxurious, is more comfortable than on an average IOR boat." Upon reading this I found myself considering how similar this situation was to the current one in which the latest crop of IRC boats (Tiamat and Flying Glove) are built to meet the "letter of the law" but not necessarily the spirit. Owners Should Focus on Sailing Their Boats At that same regatta Neville Creighton, one of the better known and respected owners in the world then and today had a few 'beauties' in the discussion of the 1992 Kenwood Cup. The first one was: "Speed is not the main issue, it is closeness of racing. If I wanted speed, I would go out and buy a tri-maran. I don't give a damn if we race in bathtubs, as long as we all race together." In the same article he was further quoted as having said: "IMS produces good fun boats, but they have defeated the purpose for which the rule was created. The new generation IMS boats are no more cruising boats than Schockwave. Ultimately, they are not going to be much cheaper than IOR boats to build either." These are, on the face very sane, reasonable comments. Yet why is it that a decade later the very same Mr. Creighton was launching his first Reichel-Pugh maxi. Why? Because whilst owners are smart, good, successful guys/gals; they are fickle. Also in 1992 John Roberson commented the following after his careful analysis of the situation: "And this seems to be the crux of the problem, there are those who want to go out and play chess afloat, winning the race on the water while others prefer to go afloat on the drawing board - out thinking their opponent before they even hit the racetrack - just as in the old IOR days." What owners want changes based on their moods, whims and caprice? That's why it makes little or no sense to include them in the process…they'll build what they please based on the available racing and personal objectives. The Challenge of Downwards Pressure It wasn't long before this "racer/cruiser" rule was being challenged as the only available option for the Grand Prix circuit. In 1993 there was a call for a series of ton-like "level classes". Dubbed the "ILC" or International Level Classes they were designed as 25, 30, 40 and 46 foot boats. Quickly, the 40's became the largest and not surprisingly the most challenged class. In fact, in September and October of 1995 a series of articles were published that focused on finding the 'silver bullet'. Andrew Hurst, the editor of Seahorse, invited comments from the owner and designer communities. According to his editorial that month, designer comments outweighed owners by a ratio of 8:1. Of course the designers' comments are very interesting with the perspective that hindsight provides. All of the comments were directed at a proposal by the designer Philippe Briand that the class should move from a rating band to a true 'box rule'. "Heresy" they all cried then. Hmm….can you say TP52s, Storm Tri-Sail 65's, Open 40's, and the ORC Class Boats? Bruce Nelson got the ball rolling by saying the following: "To preface my comments on the Briand proposal, let me first say that the ORC has not done the best possible job in implementing IMS and the ILC system (obviously), and that the recommendations we forwarded to the ORC in 1993 and 1994 regarding the ILC 40 parameters appear to have been largely ignored." But the real doosie was not his chastising comments towards the rating authority, but rather his thoughts on 'box rules': "The Briand proposal for revising the ILC40 rule into a full box is mis-titled as 'Make it Simple!' A much more accurate title might be 'Make it Much More Expensive!' …The purpose of the rating ceilings is to constrain the performance profiles of the boats to be reasonably similar in performance potential over a wide range of conditions so that close racing can be enjoyed most often. Dropping the IMS rating ceilings to create a full box rule class would defeat this purpose and create single-purpose boats highly unsuited for general IMS racing." Does this sound the comments of someone that is an unabashed supporter of today's Box Rules? But the best comments came from Geoff Stagg, the President of Farr International. He was direct in his thoughts of the 'Briand Proposal' when he churlishly wrote: "with due respect to Philippe Briand, the box rule will not improve the performance of his 1995 ILC 40 Speedy K-Yote." Ouch! But by then he was on a roll having already taken box rules on with this comment: surely a box rule would produce boats of wide performance difference. It will not work for sure and would make totally obsolete all the existing ILC 40s." Hmmm…are the TP52's really that divergent in performance? But my personal favorite was the following with respect to options other than level classes: "…the only other option being one-design class racing fills me with dread; this not something I would like to see evolving in the sport of sailing." This from the guy that sold us Mumm 30's, Farr 40's and Corel 45's after making that comment. Like I said at the outset, and these comments seem to support, designers are not looking for anything more than opportunities to espouse comments focused on pleasing existing and potential customers. Don't misunderstand me on this one. I don't have a problem with that, in fact, the have to sell. But I don't think that the technical committee of a rating rule is the correct venue. At the same time another rating authority guru, Tony Ashmead, wrote in the same series of articles: "I do not recall any serious discussions of alternatives to the ILC at all - quite the reverse in fact. The ITC, on which the owners have no representation, was hell bent on using IMS, regardless of the expense and measurement problems known to be involved." And colored these comments with the following: "The vagaries of measurement discovered at the ILC 40 Championships is nothing new…all of this was reported to the ORC which just regarded it as the Brits being difficult. The only response was the preposterous suggestion that our inability to make a 'perfect' system was due to poor training. Unfortunately this over-confident attitude to IMS measurement seems to prevail to this day." Hmmm, experience has taught many of us that the more complex the measurement, the bigger the chance for error. But the rule crawled on with everyone tying to get along. By 1997 the Racer-Cruiser allowance had become a complete farce. Focused on allowing boats like Beneteaus and Jenneaus an opportunity to become competitive against GP boats it allowed for Grand Prix hulls to get fitted with extremely light, minimal cruiser interiors and have a big credit. One has to wonder if IRC is heading in the same direction. Not stopped early on, it grew to a ridiculous point. Causing Geoffrey Ross, owner of boats like Sydney-Hobart Winner Yendys to comment, in November of 2001: "No need to invest in state of the art design, composite structures, and leading edge rig and foil considerations. Just pick the right production people mover and optimize it and sail it professionally!...but this is completely untenable as a credible proposition for sailing." I truly believe in all of this that both Americap and IRC are good rules. The problem is that the lack of leadership has created a situation in which we are left without a clear vision of the future. Everyone agrees that we need a Grand Prix Rule, a mid range measurement rule like IRC or Americap and PHRF. Without those three there is a vacuum that leads to a tremendous discontinuity in our community. But owners and designers have too much of a vested interest in the build process to be allowed input into it. Their goal is and should be to create winners. It is the Race administrators and organizers' jobs to create the environment in which they can enjoy and thrive in a positive competitive atmosphere. The
bottom line is that Americap had it right when they got the Transpacific
Yacht Club, Chicago Yacht Club and the Bermuda Race to use the rule. The
evolution of a rule should be the following: I implore the likes of US Sailing, RORC, UNCL and the rest to stand up, give us a vision we can follow and let us go racing. If they lead, we'll follow. Comments? |