Datchet Flyer

Originally posted by chrisg

Originally posted by chrisg

So just to clarify, does anyone know if ... 

The SIs seem clear enough to me. The first day all boats race all other boats on handicap, although there are staggered starts in which they will probably aim to have roughly equal numbers of boats in each fleet.

On Sunday there are two pursuit races happening on the same course at the same time. Again they will probably aim to have as close as possible the same number of competitors in each fleet. Effectively a boat in the slow fleet and a boat in the fast fleet will tie for each place in the pursuit. 

Its actually rather cunning, and there's some considerable advantages to running a pursuit like that. 

The first thing is that because the fleets are split in half the handicap variation is halved and all the boats race for a much more even length of time so the effect of varying weather is reduced. 

The second is that the effects of weather that favours the fast boats or favours the slow boats is rather reduced.

Giving it double points is rather neat, because, if I read the SIs correctly, it effectively gives the same points as if the whole fleet were racing together and they were tied for every place.

So there are a number of interesting and valid reasons for running the variation on the usual pursuit system, and it means that this event is just a little bit different from the others. 

Remember no scoring system or race management system is perfect, and they all have compromises, even if some are so familiar we don't see what the compromises are. This one brings some different pros and cons to the party. Like the Hill Head triangulation, which was mentioned in another thread recently, I wouldn't want to do it every week, but  for one event a year it brings an interesting variation to the game, and I applaud the folks at Datchet who thought it out.

Edited by JimC - 13 Dec 13 at 9:34pm