US Sailing Projects

US Sailing Offshore Office

We have undertaken several projects in conjunction with US Sailing's Offshore Office under Jim Teeters, Associate Offshore Director. Jim has worked on a database of LO boats using their Velocity Prediction Program (VPP).

All changes will be reviewed by Central Council and of course the principle of performance handicapping is still very much in the forefront. More details will be released at the PHRF-LO Annual General Meeting and also the Spring training session.

Ready for the 2012 season!

Will be a calculated delta for the No Flying Sails (NFS) base handicap.

About 10 years ago, the Speed Potential (handicap) for No Flying Sail (NFS) boats was decoupled from that of the Flying Sail (FS) handicap. This increased the work-load of Central Council and has also resulted in a tendency for the two handicaps to move together.

The current project is aimed at fixing many of the issues in the NFS handicaps and to rationalize the difference between the FS and NFS handicaps (Delta).

This new Delta is solely based upon Velocity Prediction Program (VPP) analysis of optimum boat performance both with and without flying sails. In other words, a boat’s best performance downwind with a spinnaker compared to its best performance with only genoa and mainsail.

A copy of the original draft document is available here.

A copy of the Regression Fit Graphs is available here.

 

 

Ready for the 2012 season!

Modifications to the Genoa size.

Genoa size adjustment was also studied using the same database and the VPP.

This has resulted in new values in the Genoa size adjustment table. These changes are more in the nature of a smoothing rather than major changes although the small jibs do get significantly bigger allowances.

Ready for the 2012 season!

Changes to the prop adjustments.

It has long been felt that the current allowance for fixed blade props is not adequate to cover the lost performance due to drag. In order to improve fairness for cruising boats a range of boats sizes has been analyzed to determine the drag due to fixed 2 blade and 3 blade props.

The resulting changes to the adjustment table are not large enough to cause skippers to move from folding to fixed but at least will create a more level field for the cruiser racer fleet.

Changes to the prop table.

Handicappers Manual Prop 2012

Currently being reviewed!

We have asked Jim Teeters (US Sailing Offshore office) to analyze the effect of different keel configurations.

Our hope is to better assess the speed effect of different keels within versions of the same class.