Email from the UK
February 25, 1999
Paul,
I found your homepage via the ISAF rating and handicapping links, and am impressed to see your analyses of rating rules! I am based in Ireland and have been assisting the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s Rating Office in developing their new Rating Rule IR2000 Measured, IRm. I wonder if you have the time or inclination to pull the new rule and its rating spreadsheet off the RORC webpage
http://www.rorc.org and give it a once over.The rule is designed to be something of a sliding box rule with the rating contained in an excel spreadsheet which will be publicly available. At the moment it is in a review period before being finalised at the end of May, so they are looking for informed criticism. You seem overly qualified for the job, care to give it a whirl? The Rating Office themselves can be contacted at
100526.141@compuserve.com Mike Urwin is the person in charge of the new rule, or wing any questions or criticism through me. Also there is a discussion of the rule on rec.boats.racing at the minute if you care to jump in.Thanks
Mark Mills
MILLS DESIGN
http://indigo.ie/~millsdes/index.htm
Email from Southern California
May 5, 1999
PAUL
IF YOU COULD SEND YOUR REPORT ABOUT PHRF,IMS AND AMERICAP TO ME BY E MAIL
I WOULD APPRECIATE THE REPORT. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA OCEAN RACING [ SCORA]
Email from New Orleans
May 20, 1999
To: Paul Mathews
From: Porcher (Poe) Miles, New Orleans
I read both A COMPARISON OF THE HANDICAPPING SYSEMS and THE MATHEMATICS OF AMERICAP. The papers were interesting to me because I had been fooling around with the IMS and Americap numbers.
I downloaded MATHEMATICS OF AMERICAP and coverted the file to a WORD document. I needed the free version of the viewer to see the equations. The WORD version is not as elegant as the original but it is readable.
A problem with PHRF not cited in your paper is skipper effect. PHRF ratings in the Gulf Yachting Association (over 700 boats) seem to change with the skipper. Good skippers force the rating down and bad skippers get a rating increase.
Americap also has rating problems. I own a J-92 with a 155% genoa that I race in PHRF with a 102 rating. The J-35 rated 75 gives 33 second per mile to the J-92. In actual races this time allowance has proved appropriate. For some reason Americap rates the J-92 and the J-35 almost even in speed. Anyone racing knows this is wrong.
From: Robert Bethune [editor@freshwaterseas.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 1999 8:48 PM
To: 'pmathews@apk.net'
Subject: Your article on handicapping systems
I found, and read with great interest, your article "PHRF, IMS, and Americap: A Comparison of the Handicapping Systems" at http://junior.apk.net/~pmathews/scoring/Acapartf.html. Would you be interested in updating it for publication? Or giving me permission to run it? Stop by the URL below and give it some thought.
Robert Bethune, Editor
Freshwater Seas (http://www.freshwaterseas.com)
From: Dick Hampikian [SMTP:dhampikian@webpg.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 24, 1999 1:36 PM
Paul,
California Yacht Club is trying to get Americap going this year. I came
across your web page and found it verry interesting. I would like your
permission to re-publish you analysis on Americap for an upcomming
seminar on April 7 at our club. If this is acceptable to you could you
also e-mail me a version I could print out more clearly than just
printing out from your web site.
Thanks for the good work,
Dick Hampikian
Staff Commodore
California Yacht Club
Email from South Africa
Feb 2002
Hi Paul
Firstly congratulations on a very lucid document surrounding the proposed Grand River Handicapping system. I am a "yachtie" in South Africa where, from the look of it things are the same worldwide, we are having an ongoing "handicap war." Currently the wealthy sailors are advocating the IRC handicap system, while the poor cousins are attempting to stick with a locally hybridized PHRF system. We also have a number of ambitious and aspirant sailors who wish to leave their mark on sailing and the local sailing community for life by writing their own handicapping system.
I totally agree with the assertions you make about PHRF (even our hybrid system) which has fallen into disarray through non- or mal-administration. I am in the process of procuring a large amount of test data which has been relatively accurately maintained with respect to start and finish times. While we may and in all likelihood do not have the same classes as America, this may assist you in your quest to "tune' your system.
I look forward to hearing from you in due course.
Regards
MH