So what's up with this whole IRC thing?

We still don't have our application in to the IRC for our rating for the MAC. It's getting to be really last minute..... Last week, I took a day and a half to run the boat up to BYC and back, solo, in order to get the weighing portion of the measurement completed. It was a huge effort and actually a potentially risky venture. Fortunately the weather co-operated really well.

I know of at least 3 boats from the Lake Erie region who would normally participate in the Mac Race, who are not and all of them cite the new IRC requirements as the reason. I must admit that TIME MACHINE came withing a knat's eyelash of punting on the event.

I find myself asking, "why do we have to do this"? It's a rating, it's never going to be fair, it's always going to be the source of complaints.

PHRF or IRC or AMERICAP or Time-on-Time or ..... NONE OF IT IS FAIR! Anyone who thinks that it can be fair, I have a message for you.... Get over it and race one design!

So why put ourselves through all the pain and expense of IRC? I suspect that it's an attempt to remove the responsibility for being the 'bad guy who sets the rating' from the local sailors. Now we can ALL sit around at the Pink Pony and bitch about our ratings and we can be secure in the knowledge that we aren't bad mouthing one of our local sailors. Is this really worth the aggrevation? I think NOT.

Go back to where I started, ratings are not fair.... so don't bad mouth the people who set the ratings, which means you don't need to worry about your neighbor, which means you don't have to send huge checks to the UK and spend your days hustling up and down the river!!! Simple.