The Transpac multihull start is a mere hours away and the ratings authority* (ORR) still hasn’t issued ratings! Our understanding is that Mighty Merloe is the only one of the ‘big three’ to have submitted all data, but Phaedo and Maserati did not. That doesn’t seem right at all.
From ORR: “The Offshore Racing Association (ORA) will distribute ratings for the Transpac multihull fleet by the end of the day on July 5th. There has been a significant delay due to the absence of design information on two of the boats. ORA is working to create representative hull and foil data to be used in lieu of actual measurements.
ORR-MH uses a velocity prediction program. The polars from that program are then combined with the same wind speed and direction model use to generate ratings for the Transpac ORR fleet. (It should be noted that the multihull fleet has a different scratch boat than the monohull fleet so that comparisons of corrected times will be invalid.)”
We’ll be watching closely to see how this turns out… Title thanks to the U2’s best live song.
*An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified US Sailing as the ratings authority. We got a note on that:
“US Sailing has no involvement whatsoever with the Multihull Rule currently being developed by ORA, nor is US Sailing involved in processing of certificates for the Multihull rule. This is 100% an ORA project.
“Also for clarification, US Sailing does process ORR certificates for monohulls, but does not have any ownership interest in the Rule or the VPP, which is owned exclusively by ORA.
“We do know there is a need for a robust VPP Rule for Multihulls and wish ORA success in their launch of this Multihull rule. There are many challenges that lie ahead in this development including the gathering of accurate design and measurement data on the boats.
“Ron White, Offshore Chair, Director
US Sailing”
