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Minutes of
the National Offshore Council |
CALL TO ORDER: Chairperson Morrison called the March 12th
session to order at 0930.
MEMBERS PRESENT: Paul Ansfield (NOC, USPHRF), Larry Bulman
(NOC, IMS), Bruce Bingman (NOC, USPHRF), Bruce Eissner (NOC), Ken Morrison
(NOC), Dan Van Heeckeren (NOC, ILYA), Jim Walsh (NOC, USPHRF), Talbot Wilson
(NOC, GYA), John Winder (NOC, CCA).
GUESTS: Betty Sherman (San Diego Yacht Club), Dick Hampikian (Americap II), Bill
Kellner (PHRF-LE), Glenn McCarthy (LMSRF), Dave Irish (ISAF Delegation), Bill
Munster (San Diego Yacht Club), Dan Nowlan (US Sailing Offshore Director),
Peter Reichelsdorfer (IMS), Debra Schaefer (Multihull Council), John Siegel
(St. Francis Yacht Club), Jim Teeters, Robert Thomas (Hampton YC).
REPORT OF THE SECRETARY:
A) Minutes.
Upon a motion by Bulman with support from Wilson the minutes of the Fall 2003
NOC meeting held October 16 and 18, at the Adams Mark Hotel in St. Louis
Missouri were unanimously approved
B) Communications.
Morrison read a letter Lake Michigan PHRF sent to US Sailing in care of Dan
Nowlan containing a $1000 contribution to the McCurdy Fund in support of
research. On behalf of NOC Morrison
thanked Lake Michigan PHRF for their continued and annual support of research.
A) Offshore Web Site (Pederson). No Report.
B)
Calendar of Events (Ansfield). A screen shot from the US
Sailing website was distributed to those in attendance showing a form to be
filled out by racing authorities detailing their competitive events. When submitted, the form content is
translated and displayed on the US Sailing Calendar of Events web page
Winder mentioned an application developed by Steve Benjamin (Storm Trysail
Club) that listed particulars of major racing events in a simple web active
table containing links to the event’s web page when it exists. Nowlan projected
a spreadsheet-based example for those in attendance to review.
C)
ISAF Issues (Eissner). Time was spent on summarizing the IRC
Handicapping System, offshore racing, its sponsorship and development, its
acceptance as an international rule, and its impact on US Sailors and
competitive events.
The IRC, developed by the RORC along with UNCL in France, has sufficient use by
competitive sailors in many countries and meets the ISAF criteria for
designation as a recognized international handicapping system. It is beginning to be used in the US,
notably by the St. Francis Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club. Eissner emphasized the importance of
understanding the nature of IRC and how interested sailors may be
certified. To this end a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) has been drafted and signed by the RORC giving US Sailing
sole rights to issue IRC certificates to US boats. The executive Committee will be asked to sign the MOU.
Discussion followed and Eissner, aided by Dave Irish (US ISAF Delegation),
answered questions about the process of IRC becoming an international rule and
its administration in the US, participation in IRC governance, anticipated use
of IRC in US events and in international events where US sailors may
participate.
Morrison reported during discussion of his findings regarding the application
of IRC by the St. Francis Yacht Club for their big boat series.
Eissner ended his report by noting again that IRC is established as a
recognized international handicapping system and that US Sailing has as options
to administer the IRC rule in the US and to participate in IRC governance, or
to step aside and allow another body to administer IRC in the US.
D)
ISAF Empirical Handicapping Subcommittee Report
(Ansfield). The Empirical Handicapping
Committee previously reporting to the ISAF Council is now a subcommittee and
reports to Council via ISAF Offshore Committee.
Two discussions of the subcommittee were summarized dealings with handicapping
sailors and crew and a statistical technique for finding similar boat designs
by a mathematical evaluation of their critical dimensions. Handicapping crew and skippers is a feature
of the Irish empirical handicapping system and is achieved in the US by the
development of golf handicaps employed by some US PHRF organizations for
scoring only local/intraclub events.
Problems of developing handicap offsets for sailor skill levels and
administration difficulties were listed.
The technique of numerical taxonomy was described and its application to verify
handicaps of similar boats via a statistical treatment of their critical hull
and rig dimensions. While there appear
to some problems in the techniques application it does show some promise as a
tool to be employed by empirical handicapping authorities.
These presentations along are summarized on the ISAF Empirical Handicapping
website.
E) Rating Rules (Nowlan). The status of US measurement rating systems and handicapping systems was briefly reviewed for the Council. The report in more detail is given to each rule committee and the Offshore Committee meeting over the days of this current US SAILING SPRING Meeting.
The session recessed at 1100 March 12 and resumed at March 13 at 1400.
F) Chuck Fuller reported through Chairperson Morrison that the 2004 Lloyd Phoenix competition is scheduled at the Long Beach Yacht Club September 23 – 26. The notice of race is published and can also be found on the US Sailing website.
NEW BUSINESS
A) Chairperson Morrison introduced Tom Hubble, Chairperson of the US Sailing task force addressing organization restructuring. He presented the work to date and pointed out that the proposal is rapidly changing because of input to the task force. He invited questions from those present and led related discussion. He closed by providing his email address to obtain further information and comment (tomhubble@delnet.net).
B) Upon a motion by Van Heekeren seconded by Morrison and passed unanimously, the Chair was directed to publicly thank James Teeters for all his efforts on behalf of offshore sailing while occupying the Office of Director of Research. A letter of expressing the sense of the NOC will also be sent
No further business was conducted and the Spring NOC meeting adjourned at 1330.
Submitted by,
Paul Ansfield, NOC Secretary