ANTIGUANICE YACHTING INSIDER NEWSLETTER

Photo © Grenada Sailing Week, Tim Wright

The CSA measurers have been hard at work this year with regards to the CSA Rating Rules. Here is an update from Chief Measurer and Chief Technical Officer Bastien Pouthier.

A new season is about to start, time to sand down the old antifouling, fair the thru hull fittings and make that bottom shine like a baby.

The CSA rating Rule has been updated and a few tweaks have been made. Primarily, the sheeting angle is now following a parabolic mathematical curve from a measurement giving an actual sheeting angle rather than a digit as it was in the past. This measurement will now be taken for both measured headsails.

Similarly, the in-hauler function now applies to a sail rather than a rig as it was. We all agree that an overlapping sail cannot be in hauled, so why carry this penalty. The in-hauler is not an easy aspect to rate, sure you can bring your sail in all the way to the mast but then what? We have decided to link the in-hauler penalty to the keel factor. A stumpy keel will not allow you to point high into the wind even if you bring that in hauler all the way in…

Some work has been carried out on the interface, in order to make it easier for the measurers to compare boats, test changes made to the rule, or even work out race results.

In order to ease the load on club racing, measurements are now valid for 10 years for club racers only. If you travel and compete in international regattas, your measurement will still be required to be renewed every 5 years (CSA Rule 3.3).

We have a double handed rating, not tested in real time racing between crewed and double handed racers.

Much of the work off season has been about the Classics and Simplified Rules. They are now incorporated into the same database as the main program, with the main Rule and Multihull Rule. To check CSA ratings you can use main.csarule.com.

Many events request a fun class where crew are not competitive, just want to take part in the event, do not want to go through the measurement process and just want to have fun. For these, the CSA proposes use of the Simplified Rule for the first day and variable ratings for the balance of the week. The aim is to ensure we have different winners over the course of the week. A set of rules will apply on who qualifies for this class as trophy hunters are not the target.

Check out the website in the near future for the new season updates and calendar.

The full main rule can be found here.