The News, Culture and Practice of Sailing woodenboats
in Australia, New Zealand & The South Pacific.
Classic Performance Part 1
Consequently, winning races became a challenge to outsmart the rule maker as much as to produce a better boat. Unfair shapes with rule cheating ‘rating’ lumps and bumps, poor stability, structural failures and handling issues became the norm, as the design challenge was to find the fastest sailing configuration which would ‘appear slowest’ under the version of the rule applying at the time.
Rating rules shaped our boats
The purpose of any rating rule is to enable yachts of different sizes to race together fairly. Without a rating rule there could be no enjoyable racing as, barring unforeseen circumstances, the largest yacht (and the richest owner) would always win.
Ramblings on “distortion”, and how to avoid it.
The phenomena of designers distorting the functional shape and appendages of a yacht to gain a rating advantage is not a new one.
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