Boat Performance Index

The case to point being the butt of my boring jests, the Miracle which in point of fact has actually improved in performance thanks to relaxation on jib angles if the beach telegraph is to be believed yet the current description of its performance defines it as having become 10 points slower which everyone knows is not true, but because the majority of its handlers are entry level that becomes the defining measure by which it is quantified.

I'm not after a finite scale but something you can point to, if for example you want to group boats of similar performance together, to compete. The way things are at the moment boats moving in and out of fast and slow handicap for no other reason than who happens to be sailing them and where, it simply is not logical.

We all know pretty much what compares to what, OK there will be + and - points according to water, conditions etc, but that D1, RS400 comparison. Me and my solution and the laser, they're pretty much the same speed, as are there bands of boats that should be judged similar, on the sea for example the Phantom and the Blaze should be in the same group, in one condition the Phantom will have it and in another it'll be the Blaze, I'd say that's probably the same on certain bigger inland waters, I wouldn't want to put money on say Maxibuddah even beating Mike Lyons on QM in a force 4 -5, yet if it were 2-3 then the betting might sway the other way, hence they should both be in the same banding.

That's what I'm getting at, a more general performance index across the board.

The only support it got was from a couple of fireball sailors who thought the principle was sound enough.  The 700 & MPS sailors didn't want to know....  fair enough, I dropped it is as dead duck idea.  The following spring they were racing off the same handicap number anyway..... (although I acknowledge that the Musto Skiff has suddenly got faster in the last year or two with all that development and enhancements they've been doing....)

you have to start of with water type split so as to avoid too many arguments of, "well thats not what ive seen" persisting.  So you could have non tidal, tidal, and sea BPI's

it would be interesting to see how much the py system would be squashed and stretched by this "opinion" based BPI if you use the rs400 as the mid point.

i say lets get some lists going and a clever excel wiz could do the final analysis comparing the two.