An explanation of the Star Sailors League Ranking

by Alex D'Agosta on 8 Nov 2013 The Star Sailors League (SSL) movement, with its focus on the promotion of athletes and respect for the Star Class's image, history, members, fleets and the ISCYRA, the Class's 'umbrella authority', started its activities early this year with the difficult job of compiling and keeping the Star Sailors League Ranking up to date.

The SSL Ranking is a particularly difficult and challenging idea that requires a lot of work, but in return gives great satisfaction: it is the first ever ranking in the sailing world that includes almost every race and assigns points to the majority of the competing athletes. The SSL Ranking represents a very unique form of a worldwide unified classification amongst all the sailors who compete in the regatta in its most popular form, keelboat racing, which according to statics reflects 75% of sailing.

The SSL Ranking is divided into two separate lists (Skippers and Crew) and is compiled using a mathematical rule which takes into account each competitor's six highest valid results (plus all results in Cat. 8 only) over a period of two years. In 2012 the SSL has ranked 162 races. At the end of each event, all participants are awarded a number of SSL points based on their final classification. The number of points allocated to each individual ranking is determined by the 'Table of SSL Points'. The Table shows the distribution in accordance with the mathematical model inspired by the ATP World Tour. The SSL Ranking of Skippers constitutes the benchmark classification for selecting skippers to participate in the 'SSL Finals'. The SSL Rankings may be also used in the computer games planned by the SSL.

The competitions are grouped into eight categories, according to their order of importance in the circuit. Beginning with the Local Event (10 pts, Cat. 8), the next step up is the Regional Event (100 pts, Cat. 7), then the District-Country-Tradition (250 pts, Cat. 6), Continental (750 pts, Cat. 5), Olympic Games (2000 pts, Cat. 4), Worlds (2500 pts, Cat. 3), Grand Slam (3000 pts, Cat. 2) and SSL Final (4000 pts, Cat. 1).

At the end of a competition, the allocated SSL points can be recorded in the ranking at 100% for 52 weeks. From the 53th week, and up until the 104th week which follows the competition, the SSL points allocated to all categories of regattas (One to eight) can be recorded with a value which corresponds to 50% of their initial value. From the 105th week which follows the end of a competition, no SSL points can be recorded for this competition. So, the SSL Ranking is not reset at the beginning of each year but is a continuous computer-based process of entering, downgrading and dropping events. The SSL Ranking is valid seven days and is updated each week. Star Sailors website