New British OK Dinghy Ranking System

OK Open at South Staffs © Samuel Bailey

With the OK End of Season Championships (kindly sponsored by P&B) coming up on the 16th and 17th of November at Northampton Sailing Club, the British Class Association has been putting plans together with a view to maximising attendance at key event for the 2025 season.

These are a revised series of premier events and a new UK Ranking System.

Grand Slam Series

The Grand Slam series has been running for a few years and consists of 5 key events throughout the year. In response to feedback at the class AGM during the Nationals in July for more sea events, the 2025 season will see this series of premier events expanding from 5 events to 6 with an equal number of inland sea events over the year. This will include the National Championships which are being held at Dabchicks SC 12th-15th July.

The guidelines for the Grand Slam series is now:

• 3 Inland Events (typically, Inlands, End of Seasons + one other).
• 3 Sea Events including Nationals.
• At least one event should be held in each region to promote attendance at least one event for as many sailors as possible across the country.

British OK Ranking System

The International Class Association has been running an International Ranking system for several years and the British system is a local development drawing from that system. It will use the Grand Slam events over the year to provide a rolling Ranking system to promote increased participation at these key events. A preliminary ranking list has been compiled from the 2024 Grand Slam events and the first full list will be published after the 2024 End of Season Championships.

The system uses a factored score based on the following:

Base Points (BP) - 100 base ranking points awarded to winner of each event with other places being awarded points pro-rated based on the number of entrants down to a minimum of 30 points.

Travel Factor (TF) - To encourage travel to ranking events, for events outside a competitor's home region, points will be multiplied by 1.2. This recognises the time and effort it takes to attend an event further away from home by rewarding travellers with a small ranking point bonus. To encourage as many to attend the OK Nationals and to reflect the extra days holiday required to compete, all competitors at the Nationals will use a travel factor of 1.2.

Competition factor (CF) - A competition factor will be applied based on the number of entrants so better attended events score higher than less well attended events. This will be calculated as number of entrants divided by number of competitors at the current or last Nationals plus 1. i.e. for Nationals competition factor = 2; for 20 boat event (with 2024 Nationals =37 boat entry), competition factor will be (20/37)+1 = 1.5

Ranking Score - Final ranking points will be calculated as BP * TF * CF

Scores will be accumulated over the year and be based on Grand Slam events in the last 12 month. This will be a rolling total and updated on a regular basis through out the year.

Proposed Regions for the new British OK Dinghy Ranking System - photo © OK Dinghy British Class Association

Each competitor is assigned to a home region based on stated sailing club. This is fixed for the year.

The proposed regions are:

• South - West of Central London and South of M4 corridor (W Sussex, Hampshire, Surrey, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Cornwall)
• East - East of line through central London from Wash to Brighton (East Sussex, Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk)
• Midlands - North of M4 corridor, West of East Region and south of line from Mersey side to Humber
• Scotland & North - North of Midlands Region

The new Ranking System is designed to reward both sailing excellent with commitment to the fleet which means a sailor can climb the ranking through regular attendance as well as winning events. The preliminary rankings based on 2024 Grand Slam results has National and World Champion Nick Craig at 12th as while he won the Nationals he did not manage to attend any other UK events in 2024. However Charlie Cumbley who took second at the Nationals is up in 3rd place as he also won the Southern Championships. Ahead of Charlie in 2nd is the well travelled Bernard Clark and topping the preliminary ranking list in the Pinnell & Bax OK guru Tom Lonsdale who has had a great season both in terms of events attended and results.

Preliminary Rankings

The table below shows the current preliminary ranking after the 2024 Grand Slam events.