Master of the One Design - part two

In the second part of our interview with him Geoff Stagg gives his views about rating rules in general

This turns our conversation towards that of rules in general. Like most people Stagg acknowledges that with the IMS being 'basically dead' with the King of Spain and his entourage now committed to the TP52 and IRC being so 'non-scientific and open to tweaking', there is now more demand than ever for a credible, internationally-adopted Grand Prix handicap rule.

"At present there is no rule that promotes the boats that the sailors and owners want," he maintains. "Where IMS messed up was that the boats are just *!!*!##$ - no one wants to sail them. They are just not fast boats for their size and their cost. That is where the Transpac 52 scores - they are fast as hell and they look good."

Stagg says it comes as no surprise that the stakeholders attempting to develop the new Grand Prix Rule factionalised as the parties involved had such diverse ideas. It should be remembered that all the while there is a lack of an internationally acceptible rule of this kind and owner's confidence remains undermined, it is good news for the established one design classes and even Stagg acknowledges that there are a lot of owners in the Farr 40 class who would prefer to be campaigning custom race boats. "But there is not enough confidence in any rule out there for them to do that at the moment and if you don’t get a new rule that promotes fast, nice handling boats with cost constrains and with professional management it is not going to work. You can throw stones at the Farr 40 class all day, but what it does have is very good class management."

This brings us back to an old chestnut we have raised in the past on thedailysail - who should a new Grand Prix Rule be aimed at? Is it the top 5% of owners or the top 20%? Stagg reckons on it being the top 5% - specifically owners who want to work with a design team and customise their boat and work with their own builder and race all around the world knowing that there is a rule that treats them fairly wherever they go.

The problem rulemakers always face is on the one hand trying to create competition at the highest level which necessarily requires a certain amount of elitism, versus a paranoia about remaining popular enough to keep numbers of competitors up. "The rule makers keep going back trying to create a rule for the masses," says Stagg. "They almost got it right with IRM, but they just let their egos get in the way and couldn’t get it right. What it needs is for IRM to be repackaged, the kinks to be taken out of it (and there aren’t many). There needs to be a name change and it needs to be administered by an international group, not Lymington (the RORC Rating Office) because it is tainted and there is the perception is that there is a home court advantage. The only way to control that is to have a body in the middle with three or four reps from each country to administer it and a professional at the top." So the new RIM rule, administered from the Azores by a United Nations-style delegations from the world's top keelboat sailing countries.

"I was a big proponent of IRM but retweaked, mainly relating to cost control," continues Stagg. "The reality is that the more money you spend under IRM the better your boat is. That isn’t right. A lot of it was centred around there being no limit on beam waterline and that had repercussions throughout the boat."

IRM is also susceptible to creating 'horses for courses' believes Stagg which would also need to be addressed. "I was pushing a very tight version of the TP52 box rule, where the boats were too overpowered for some conditions with too much sail area and too much stability," he continues. "You are not going to get perfection but as long as you have a boat that goes like a blur...we might be overpowered a bit in heavy air - but it’s fun. We don’t want to removing sail area or lead from the keel to cheat the rule."

However at present the TP52 class are heading in two diverging directions with European owners wanting pro-drivers and the US campaigning to keep drivers amateur-owner like the Farr 40.

Stagg says that in the Farr 40 class they had to introduce a Helmsman Eligibility Committee to prevent professional sailors with 'amateur' status, as defined by ISAF, from ending up on the wheel. "They were starting to drive the real owners out of the class, so five years ago I changed the rule to ‘amateur-owner only’. And we put in a helmsman eligibility committee where every owner has to apply to the HEC and we have a whole heap of questions they have to answer and based on that they are either in or out. There is some wriggle room but if the candidate meets the spirit and intent of the rule they will get in. We want to keep it as owners driving next to owners and have got to guard against under the table deals and shady boat ownership."

Interestingly for someone with a background in pushing technical innovation, Stagg does not have a solution for where raceboats incorporating wholescale developments such as canting keels should end up. "You look at the results of IRC these days - it is being won by big canting keel full-on race boats. I don’t know how the general punter feels about that. I wouldn’t think they feel good."

Equally Stagg does not envisage such boats fitting into a new Grand Prix rule. "You can imagine the Farr 40s with canting keels - it would be full-on carnage. There would be rigs hooked up and in the panic tacks someone might die. They are pretty cool when they are being maintained by professionals, but down at the next level when the maintainence factor isn’t there and they hit a rock a few times, there will be a lot falling off. I don’t think they should be in a new Grand Prix rule because of the cost - they are outrageously expensive. They are impactive on the boat. Why not just go and get a multihull if that's your game?"

He is relieved that the TP52 class have prohibited movable ballast. "That should stay in the Volvo, the America’s Cup boats, the BOC and the fringe end of the sport where the guys love speed and money desn't matter. I don't think IRC is the place to cater for them. IRC was never meant to be a development class and they should have stood their ground."

Equally on the basis that a unique selling point of their One Designs is offering 'that little bit more' performance-wise, it would be a smart move commercially for Farr International to come up with a canting keel Farr 45 within the next five years to kick the TP52s into touch. We shall see...

Already they have upped the performance ante from the Mumm 30 and Farr 40 with the launch last year of the Farr 36. This Stagg describes as "an absolute go-fast no handicap influence whatsoever, lifting carbon keel, big masthead A sails on a prod, 6,000lb all-up rocketship, which draws 8.5ft (the same as a Farr 40): just as fast as... It is all carbon out of five axis milled tooling and just one hell of a cool boat." At $165,000 without sails or electronics or $225,000 with everything, even a trailer, the boat offers considerable bang for buck but like the Farr 40 is facing a hard battle until such time as it becomes adopted as a one design since Stagg says it can't sail under IRM and has been handicapped out of existence under IRC. He hopes the class will have its own start at Key West next year.

To date nine Farr 36s have been built with one purchased by Ian Oatley, son of Wild Oats owner and canting keel advocate Bob Oatley and another to Markus Fiala in the UK - the rest going to US owners.