The Tasar v the Icon

EN's !

The 'cloak' of constantly stating that they are the result of club returns does not enhance any debate on the general subject.  It is not sufficient justification.  It gives a misleading 'sense' that there were lots and lots of results and lends any resulting EN number a bit of erroneous credibility.  For Icon there are precious few ....  We know there are not enough results yet, that will always happen with new classes.  But regrettably the system cannot apply a common sense methodology when dealing with new classes.  In fact it appears to take a perverse pride in this inflexibility.  Fit for purpose ?  Well we are biased of course so step up to the plate and for Pete’s sake show us that '969' is a truly representative average against other classes  Can Icon be sailed to 969 ?  Yes of course ... but only on rare occasion, on the right courses and so on.   In wider competition and against good examples of other classes and against top quartile crews -  much much less likely my friends.   It is not slow for sure and Icon is the fastest 2-sail production hiker as far as we know but is it realistically all of nearly 50 PN points faster that a Tasar ?  (now the second fastest production 2-sailer in the world !) Faster - yes we agree of coure ... but ....          
 
Even my own club, Burghfield SC,  the one that possibly provided in excess of 50% of the individual  'club returns' used to generate the current EN of '969' for Icon runs us off 990 in 2014.  The local handicappers are not known for doing any favours whatsoever, so why on earth they might be bothered to do so in this instance despite the appearance of a fancy new 'EN' ? .....   might it just be because they have little faith in th enew EN either ?    Could it be some of the 'good'  and 'great' of the club are so easily persuaded to gentle with us ? ... or have a few actually tried it for themselves ?

Nobody is asking favours and I for one am certainly not suggesting bias but heaven above surely the Portsmouth system can manage and come up with a better and more appropriate approach to handicapping new classes ?  No class association or manufacturer really wants to set PNs - despite the odd lazy inferences they might want to do exactly that.  

So of course we prefer GL numbers - it is still not an ideal system (and yes we do know it rests in part on the methodology of the official PN approach) but it is more progressive for sure and getting 'there' quicker.  IMO PNs should only be based on the results of the front quartile of any fleet and at introduction new classes should be assessed with significant weighting given to results from ’ranking’ handicap events such as the sailjuice series in the first 2-3 years.  Thousands of club results but with numbers that include a rump of old and uncompetitive examples of any class are to a great extent a waste of time.  Larger samples lend credibility but only if they are all truly representative of what any particular boat is actually capable of.....  Get rid of the old/slow 'dilution' is part of the argument.

And in the meantime just sail 'it' cos you love it !  Just like we do .....

Mike L.