The organisers of The Superyacht Cup regattas in Antigua and Palma have joined forces with the organisers of the St Barths and Newport Bucket Regattas to adopt the ‘Bucket Rating’ system. The system was developed by Jim Teeters, Associate Offshore Director at US Sailing, and has been refined by Bucket Regattas over the last six years, creating an accurate and transparent system for rating superyachts of all designs and sizes.

Hank Halsted, Bucket Race Committee Chairman, has welcomed the move. “It is a great opportunity to bring the four regattas together on the same standard for pursuit racing, streamlining the application process and bringing parity to the regatta results,” he said. “With nearly a hundred superyachts in the system, the Bucket Rule has truly hit its’ stride.”

The goal of the Bucket Rating system is to provide starting times for each yacht that result in the entire fleet converging on the finish line at the same time, and do this for a variety of courses in any wind speed. The Bucket Rating process is simple, only requiring measurements for length, weight, draft, ballast, rig and sail characteristics. From this, the yachts’ VPP (Velocity Prediction Programme) is calculated and combined with some ‘Observed Performance’ adjustments to produce a combination of technical capability and real sailing performance.
This system has been modified over the years and proved itself with the results of the 2008 St. Barths Bucket where the first 10 of 26 boats finished within 150 seconds in a two hour race, with many of them overlapping.

“The Bucket Rating system has shown over the past few years to provide one of the fairest and most accurate ways of rating different style and size superyachts over a varied race course” commented Superyacht Cup Event Director, Patrick Whetter. “We want our events to continue to be fun regattas, where owners are familiar and confident with the rating system. By adopting the Bucket Rating we can bring the Superyacht Cup Palma and Antigua, and St Barths and Newport Buckets, closer together to help build the data and continually improve the system. We know how competitive everyone gets out on the water and we believe this system is the best possible option for fun, safe, fair and competitive superyacht racing.”

The next Superyacht Cup Antigua, December 9th – 12th 2008, will use the Bucket Rating for all classes, whereas the Superyacht Cup Palma will consider an IRC class in addition should there be sufficient demand.
For more information and the Notice of Race for The Superyacht Cup Antigua visit: www.thesuperyachtcup.com

Superyacht Regatta Calendar

2008
The Superyacht Cup Antigua, Dec 9-12, 2008
2009
St Barths Bucket, March 26-29th
The Superyacht Cup Palma, June 24-27th
Newport Bucket, July 17-19th
The Superyacht Cup Antigua, Dec 8-11th (tbc)