Hello Derek & Marilyn,
With reference to your letter to Keith Jamieson of the Flying Fifteens, I own a classic Fifteen, 617, which I have had for nearly 20 years and can comment on the reason for the split in the handicaps of the Fifteen fleet. Whether it will help our case in the Albacores I'm not sure in terms of working out how it would apply to the class, but nonetheless I am in support of some suitable handicapping as you will have seen from my comments elsewhere on this thread.
Anyway, here goes. The Flying Fifteen is similar to the Albacore in that it is essentially a one design class with freedom in the layout of controls. Like the Albacore, build tolerances were quite wide as the boat was designed to be built by any builder from any material. Also like the Albacore, various builders used the rules tolerances to extract more performance and the greatest of these was the late Roy Windebank. Roy started experimenting when sail numbers were in the low 2000s and various MK1, 2 and 3 versions appeared, all with good characteristics on various points of sailing. The breakthrough came with his Mk4 hull at around sail number 2700. This hull was a step change and immediately dominated the class, with good performance all round. Other versions followed, but Roy's next step up came with the Mk9 hull which has evolved to the current Mk10. The rules have been tightened up now, so that there is much more consistency in hull shape, but essentially the Windebank shape continues to dominate the class with proven performance and longevity in the hands of the current builders, Ovington, who of course also now build the Albacore.
When determining the break points for classic and silver fleet handicaps in the Fifteen points, the obvious answer was to base it on the arrival of the Mk4 and Mk9 hull shapes. Hence, classic Fifteens now have sail numbers below 2700, but also include Wyche & Coppock and Copeland boats above that number as they continued to be built in traditional moulds. Silver fleet boats are between 2700 and 3200, when the Mk9 arrived. However, this limits the fleet size a bit and in the UK I think there is now a dispensation up to 3400 which recognises that even the older Mk9s are getting on a bit. Internationally, the 3200 limit still applies for now. I'm sure Keith will correct me if things have moved on from this!
The handicap numbers themselves have moved around a bit with experience but at least it has helped the fleet to stay active at club level in mixed fleets. At class open meetings the classics and silvers either get their own start after the main fleet, or their numbers can be separated out if everyone sails together, it depends on the size of the fleet at the event. I did sail one event in Scotland where the handicap numbers were used within the fleet, which made for some interesting numbers, but was a useful exercise.
So, that's the story with the Fifteens, but the question is, can this logic be applied to the Albacore fleet? I don't know enough about the class to be able to comment with any authority at all, but I do understand that the Woof shape is significant, and was copied by various builders, I also understand that the current Ovington hulls have a performance advantage. Whether this can be well enough identified within the fleet to provide a demarcation by sail number as with the Fifteens is for others to judge.
Hope this helps anyway.
Graham
Natural Ally 5893
