The International Canoe

It has been agreed that we will post on the website a summary of what was agreed at committee meetings on the Latest News section of the website which will be enhanced to allow the membership to be involved in what has been discussed so that members can comment via the forum.

Items on my list to be published once I get all the information from various committee members are;

PY numbers and dealing with Nethercott OD boats sailing under new rules
Travellers adjustment for 2011 and new scoring for 2012
Dinghy exhibition
Proposed rule ammendments
Training dates 2012
Confirmation of dates for 2012
Advanced notification of dates for championships 2013, Worlds

There is now a new item on the main menu (far left) called Latest News. The outcome of the BCU Committee meeting is now shown in this section and other items will appear there as matters arise.

Steve, I'm confused! Surely all one design boats conform to the new rules as do Slurps, pre nethercott boats and the like?
I've got no especial objection to reregistering 257, (should add a few hundred quid to the value!), although as she's deliberately set up to be readily transformable back to one design status it might be as well to keep the old number available, but what about the oldies?

The intention is to make a clear unambiguous statement to clubs and duty officers about how to identify boats for the purpose of the PY. This is similar to how other classes have moved to new PY's without penalising the older boats. The sail number is clearly the simplest approach and it was felt that this becomes simpler to administer. In short of you want to conform to the new rules with a lower minimum weight and take lead out for example or fit a fat back end on your transom (should you be silly enough to try such a thing ) you have to re-register and sail off a PY of 895. This is not unreasonable as you are effectively changing your boat to a new set of rules, it is effectively is a different boat and should be clearly identified as such.

We have a slight issues with GBR312 which needs to be dealt wit but otherwise it seems like a simple solution.

Using a specific sail No. as a cutoff seems a simple and obvious solution. But a couple of "what-iffs",queries and scenarios for ya:

Jim re-registers his fat ar**'d boat with a new number and in time sells it on, the new owner then takes the foam wedges off and brings it up to weight so that he can sail with the OD's and then's p*s*ed off 'cause he has to sail off 895.

Where does this leave the thriving Slurps of West Kirby and potential for growth?

AC's may eventually become the only way into the OD fleet for some, what happens if I buy a post 305 AC and take off the extra stuff - what handicap will I sail off?

Lot's of Nethercotts not being used in France and Sweden and could in the future be a cheap source of starter/OD boats. Importing one into the UK under the proposed sail number rule would penalise the buyer and possibly kill off a future route to growing the fleet.

I would have thought that requiring "proper and permanent" new rule boats (sorry Jim no insult intended) to get a new sail number but start the new numbers after a gap (say 20, 50 - pick your own number) to allow for imports, Slurps, change of use and grandfathering. But I suppose Jim's boat could always revert to 257. .. Sorted that one for ya... OH, as long as 257 hasn't been re-allocated to fix an anomaly.

Not complaining (yet ) just making some observations, but it would be interesting to know if these issues were looked at by the committee.

Best Regards,

Ian McP

You're missing my point Steve. All the one designs conform to the new rules. They measure. If they didn't they wouldn't be, for example, eligible for the traveller's trophy or whatever. So you cannot logically make any distinction based on conformity with the new rules, because they all conform. I don't have a problem with getting 257 renumbered, but what about 291, or a pre Nethercott boat, or indeed any post 305 AC that for one reason or another wishes to race as a OD for a season? As it happens 257 didn't measure as a one design before I put the stern on, (foredeck 1mm too high or something and too light) so has been measured as 2009 rules only.

On numbers, rather than reregister boats completely, which is confusing for future owners and records and so on, why not simply require boats under 305 which do not comply with Appendix IV to add 1,000 ( or multiple thereof) to the sail number for all competition use? Just as distinctive, same result but less admin and less hassle with peeling numbers off sails. And you could have an O on the sail for any post 305 boat that complies with Appendix IV...

Ian,

Good points but what do you suggest - a piecemeal arrangement by which an individual arranges with every race officer what rating he intends to use? Starting in a large fleet this would not be practical, a race officer can refer to the association website and from there get a clear indication of what the handicap should be without looking at the builders certificate to see what design it conforms to. There is a danger that if we don't make this distinction, all IC's will be forced to sail off 895 anyway on the basis that is a development class and the old boats can be updated and the class does not have adequate control.

This is an attempt to put some simple rules in place to stop any confusion at club level. We talked about putting another red mark on the sail for OD boats but this all starts getting a bit messy and difficult to police. The re-registration idea was designed to effectively make owners who wish to reduce weight for example, make the changes official by issuing a new number - a clear indication that it is no longer a OD Nethercott.

This proposal is however intended to give a starting point as a recommendation to clubs. It is not the job of the association to set PY this is done by the RYA in conjunction with clubs putting in their returns - although as Jim mentioned elsewhere this is changing. Clubs will can set their own PY but are only likely to do so if they have enough boats in their own fleets to make an educated adjustment to the PY. The Slurps therefore are sufficient in number make their own arrangements.

Any new boats built are to the new rules anyway so these aren't affected - the new rules boats allow a non Nethercott shape to be built to a minimum weight but must sail of the PY allocated otherwise you would have each design with a different PY - even more confusion would ensue.

There are only five AC's above 305 so if they remove spinnakers they would be at a disadvantage but all these are very lightweight and the most modern Ac's and I would be surprised if anyone would want to sail them as standard Nethercotts. if so they can remove the balast and sail as new rules boats anyway

Any imports could retain their country of origin number in which case they will definately be below 305.

Would adding an underscore to the IC be a good cheap solution?
One design insignia=IC
SHC

Its a nice thought Steve. But the main area of difficulty is for reporting of results for the UK handicapping scheme and I think that may be a bit subtle for the average club volunteer to spot. If the subdivisions aren't reported right then there won't be good data for the number crunching to churn. Its incredibly irritating when you go to put the results in at home from the sheet supplied by the race officer and you can't figure out exactly what class one of the boats is. Happens more often than you'd believe, especially with Laser Sailors who get their Radial rig out when its howling or newcomers who've got some variery of RS Feva and you're not sure which one.

At the moment, in theory at least, Canoes should get reported as Sloop rig or Una rig, Asymmettric or no kite. The fact that we do get Una rigged Canoes reported at the UK from clubs other than AndyP's gives you an idea of how prone to error this is, and my club managed to report my boat as an AC one year, and I don't think its the only one. Canoes aren't the biggest of problems- in some of the more "recreational" craft which sell with several varieties of rig even the owner may be unsure what they have!

From the point of view of correcting data entry problems in future years when results get to the RYA I guess sail numbers under 305 = one design is fairly compelling, even if we have a problem with identification. But it does leave a number of problems in other areas, including what you'd think would be the easy IC/AC one. I suppose if we really wanted to make it easier for ROs, who are usually much better at reporting sail number than class, we might add, on the water only, say 1,000 to all AC numbers and 2,000 to all IC (not OD) numbers. Instant class growth!

Anyone familiar with what other classes do? The National 12 class lists six different handicaps for its various boats by sail number.
http://www.national12.org/private/Guides/handicaps.shtml

The Merlin Rockets are even worse and have ten different handicap numbers!
http://www.merlinrocket.co.uk/technical/handicaps.htm

In general the older members of the development classes aren't reported separately for handicap purposes, although a few clubs report "Classic Cherub, Classic Merlin etc". Its most likely that different numbers of sails or crew are reported seperately by clubs.

The thing is that if we wish clubs to report PY numbers for ODs separately from ICs then we have to make it extremely easy for them to do so, otherwise they probably won't bother.

I have to confess being at something of a loss as to what my club *should* report 257 as. From a competition point of view clearly my boat cannot compete as a one design: I must compete as a 2009 rules boat. That's easy. But when it comes to PY returns my boat is of similar speed to a One design, and significantly slower than any of the 2009 rules boats, so it ought not be reported as 2009 rules because it will distort the numbers. In point of fact I don't think my club has been submitting returns for ICs since my boat stopped being a one design.

Your being unusually pedantic Jim . I was trying to simplify things on the basis of age and prior to 2009. To be precise we are trying to distinguish between IC's and OD's measured under appendix iv and making a presumption that OD rules boats are unlikely to be built in the future.

Adding a prefix is actually a good idea and has the effect of suddenly making the fleet look larger - RS have been doing it for years so why not. Will feed this back for discussion.

As a final update on the PY issue.......the critera for PY=905 for the IC OD has now been agreed to be based on sail numbers and will apply for sail numbers GBR305 and below. The website has been updated to reflect this. Local arrangements are already in place for the Slurp designs who sail off their own handicap.Tony Marston and his group are being consulted. There will be a more full description on this in the next issue of Sliding Seat which is due for publication in March.

Dates have now been confirmed and are posted on the website together with details of the Dinghy Exhibition on the 3/4th March and our first open at Llandegfedd. Also some advance notication for events in 2013 and 2014 have been added and will be enhanced as more information becomes available.

Steve,

Just noted 'Weston Skiff' listed as LLandegfedd not Weston for Secondary Events. Sounds like one not to be missed!

Steve 310

Are the RYA listing the 09 boats number yet? Keep get put on 870 at events with Monkey.