Mike Urwin talks to madforsailing

The technical manager of RORC's rating office is helping shape the keelboats of the future

It's easy to understand how you might become an International yacht designer or even a navigator or a skipper but what is the road to becoming the guru of the racing rules? Accident. Pure and simple accident. 12 years ago I was working for myself doing bits and pieces of design engineering project management in the marine industry and I became a measurer for RORC. One thing led to another and when my predecessor John Moon resigned to take up another post I was asked whether I would be interested in taking over his position. It's gone from there.

What was the state of rating rules within the RORC when you joined?
IOR was to all intents and purposes dead when I joined the rating office. I think the last IOR certificate we issued was in 1993. I joined the office in early 1992. IMS was in theory alive. At that time we were issuing around 400 to 600 IMS certificates a year and a significant number of them to one-design Sigma 33 and so on. That very quickly fell. Last year it was 11 certificates under IMS by comparison with the 2900 we issued under IRC.

So the RORC and the Union Nationale Course au Large (UNCL - the French equivalent of RORC) between them decided that something had to be done and you were instrumental in that process?
No, CHS dates back to 1983 - well before I was involved. It was in response to the dissatisfaction with IOR. I can remember it from my own sailing days that back in the early 80s I was sailing 3/4 tonners and we were doing daft things like moving the notch in the gunwhale to move the after girth station to save 0.2 of a foot of rating. You did it with a file which cost you about 10 minutes then a huge bill for re-measurement.

So RORC and UNCL got together and effectively responded to owner demand for something to allow the owners of cruiser racers to join in. CHS was originally conceived as a very low-level cruiser racer rule for the channel, hence the name Channel Handicap. It was never thought that there would ever be more than 3- 400 boats rated under CHS so the whole structure of the thing was set up for that. Last year we had year (2000) we had a total of 5250 boats with valid certificates. The total database is now approaching 20,000 boats. That database is all existing certificates plus all lapsed certificates.

So the IOR finally died, IMS slowly became a sort of localised exotic rule and Channel Handicap metamorphosed into IR2000. Explain how that came about.
I think we have to be entirely fair in that the RORC put considerable effort into trying to make IMS work. They worked in terms of putting up trophies, in terms of offers for cheap or in some cases free measurement and cheap or in some cases free certification. Considerable effort and, it has to be said, considerable members' funds were devoted to that purpose. Only when all avenues had been explored and found to fail was the decision taken to proceed with the IR2000 development. Even that was after at least two false starts. We had got the point of saying 'we must do this' and then we saw signs of resurgence in IMS. Ultimately IMS did not happen, therefore the decision was taken to proceed with the IR2000 programme.

So what were you trying to achieve with IR2000?
There is actually a list of 14 objectives. The fundamental primary ones were firstly to provide a playing field for those who wished to play hard ball with their chequebooks, focused on leading edge design with high performance boats. The second objective - very much in parallel with that - was to prevent CHS becoming that playing field. In the mid and late 90's we were already seeing signs that CHS was in some cases being taken over by the hard ball players to the detriment of what I euphemistically call the 'Puddleton on Sea Sailing Club'. Owners there were looking at what was happening in CHS and saying look this is too hard for us and that impinges directly on the ability of owners to buy, to own and compete in cruiser racers. If CHS had fallen apart because of pressure from the top that would have directly impinged on events such as Cowes Week, Cork Week, the Scottish Series and every other regatta that used CHS. The subsidiary aims were to simplify measurement, to keep the administration as simple as possible and to reflect the reality of boats that were on the water and could be created with modern technology and modern materials design techniques.

So the two-tier rule was absolutely pivotal to your objective?
Absolutely pivotal. One of the very early decisions we took was that rating rules are invariably type forming. If we created an IRM rule which was the same as IRC we would have failed in the fundamental objective of preserving the playing field of the cruiser racers. So we took the fundamental decision, 'rating rules are type forming' therefore we will identify the type we think is sensible and go along with that. At the same time we needed to attempt within IRC to keep the rule as widely available as possible. It is worth touching on the fact that CHS was secret, IRC is secret and will remain so. Beyond that it is interesting to speculate and to note that other rules we administer are secret. The sports boat rule and the Nautor Swan rule that we administer is secret. Of other rules, the Caribbean racing rule is a secret rule. There is an overt statement on the US Sailing web site that Americap is a secret rule.

So it was at IRC level that the success of Channel Handicap continued?
Absolutely. It was a seamless transition. I don't have the numbers off the top of my head but the first year of IRC saw an increase in certificate numbers over the last year of CHS. The second year of IRC (2000) saw an increase on the first year. Numbers to date (middle of March) are up on last year. So yes, completely seamless, and IRM has taken off in a limited kind of way. We never expected to see huge rampant growth in IRM. It is expecting too much to ask owners to commit lots of money at an early stage into something entirely new we are quite prepared to be patient to take a long view and to recognise there are pitfalls along the way. Last year, the first year of IRM, we saw 57 boats rated from nine countries which we thought was a pretty good start.

Tell me something about the internationalisation of the IR2000 class.
It has probably had a wider take up than you would have expected internationally. CHS was never conceived other than as a local British/French rule - primarily a Channel rule. Last year, between ourselves and UNCL, we issued certificates in 32 countries. That pattern has continued right through CHS and IRC and we have no reason to believe that it will not continue into the future. Just a fortnight ago the Cyprus Yachting Association put in a request to administer IRC in Cyprus.

There are currently conversations going on with the all Russia Yachting Federation, so we continue to see growth. What we will never do is too try and impose IRC or IRM onto sailors into areas which do not want the rule. In effect IR2000 is in the shop window. You are very welcome to come and have a look. The salesmen will leave you alone unless you want to ask a question then we will help. Rating rules should be bought they must not be sold. Rating rules which are hard-sold are a recipe for disaster. We adopt the philosophy its in the shop window if you want to have ago you are very welcome; if you don't that's just fine.

The ORC has now become the Offshore Racing Committee within ISAF. What effect will that have on your operations?
None immediately. We carry on exactly as before. CHS wasn't and IRC isn't an international rule with a capital 'I'. It is widely accepted internationally. What we would like to see is IR2000 becoming an international handicap rule but we are not prepared to compromise the rule or more importantly we will not compromise the owners of boats rated under the rule for the sake of any sort of political expedient. In other words IR2000 will only become an international rule if we consider that the terms and conditions the contract with ISAF in effect are satisfactory to protect the interests of the owners who have demonstrated faith in us.

Going back to and looking in a little more detail at IRM you say the rule was type forming. You set out to specify a type form. Within the parameters of your rule how successful have you been?
It is early days to be absolutely clear but yes we think that the fundamental type-form was fast and fun. Within that we wanted boats with good stability because boats with good stability go some way towards high seaworthiness - a quality we wanted. We also have boats with generous sail area because that contributes to speed and exciting sailing. The new boats we saw and the existing boats that have been elected to race under the rule more or less share those characteristics, so yes we are not disappointed so far.

What happens next?
We are continually reviewing where we are. We are continually looking at elements within the rule. We are interested right now in whether some of the restrictions within IRM - particularly to do with trying to restrain cost - are appropriate or not. In some case we suspect that may not be the case. Maybe it is inhibiting owners from commissioning boats so we are reviewing it. We are also reviewing characteristics for displacement and so on for the larger boats. We can't force or impose but what we will do is when we receive interest from anywhere we will respond to that.

Speaking personally or maybe even as an RORC view, would you like to see a return to the situation that we had in the 1970s where there was one international rule for rating big boats or at least one system like IR2000?
Yes, it is very desirable but there will be inevitably areas of the world that do not wish for whatever reason to use a rule of that type. Perhaps the parallel to draw is that if one accepts that there should only be one rating or handicap rule, should one also not accept that there should only be one design? There are lots of one-designs. OK they're lots of different sizes so perhaps one accepts that there are one designs 20', 30', 40', 50' etc. In practice there are several one-designs of the same size. Plainly it is because they're sold so I remain unconvinced that the goal of a single rating rule is achievable.

What else is the Rating Office involved in?
Within the rating office we run IR2000, the RYA and RORC Sports Boat Rule, The Nautor Swan Rule, and the Volvo Ocean 60 Rule. We are the measurement authority for Mumm 36 and the Mumm 30. We have involvement with Sigma 33, Sigma 38 Prima 38 and we act as unpaid, unofficial advisers to many other classes.

How much does, say, the Swan Rule draw from the IRC?
As far as possible our aim is that data should be common so that an owner wishing to transfer between one rule and another does not require remeasurement. That was one of the other fundamental issues within IR2000 that is in so far as possible the measurement data was the same. That is not always possible within one-design classes, but what we always try to do is use standard methods, standard dimensions and things like that common data files. We use equipment rules of sailing in respects of sails and we would dearly like to use equipment rules across the board hulls and rigs. To date it has proved difficult for good technical reasons but we are in detailed correspondence with the equipment rules working party. So we are trying as far as possible. At the end of the day what we are interested in is minimising the time trouble and expense that owners have to go to.

How do you judge the general health of the boats that are racing under your system?
I think the deal is pretty healthy. If we come back down to cruiser racer competition at club level its healthy. At regatta level and national regatta level, Cowes, Cork etc. all's well. It's as healthy at the international level. Things like Sydney-Hobart, Phuket King's Cup, Antigua Race Week - all those events are thriving so in general terms I think the sport is in a pretty healthy state. That is something we have to fight to maintain and we must not give away what we have achieved there for the sake of a few who wish to play hard ball.

Where does the future of what you call the 'hard ball' sport lie?
I wish I knew. I really don't know. I think what is apparent is that be it in one-designs, be it under rating rules, that there is a desire in quite a lot of quarters for owner-drivers. Classification of crews, separation of amateurs crews from professional crews. The Farr 40s have achieved that, the ID35s have done it, the Swan European regatta - though not the Worlds interestingly - follows that same process. Regattas such as Cork Week differentiate in most classes between amateur and professional sailors. Maybe that's a divide which needs to be clearly born in mind in looking at the future of grand prix racing.

I don't know what the future holds. The Volvo Race this year is looking at eight or nine boats. That's not bad considering the cost. America's Cup is plainly very successful. The Race and Vendée Globe have been very successful. Perhaps we just leave it alone. If it ain't bust don't fix it.

Thanks, Mike.