Miami

I dunno, I've never understood that the 'oi polloi have any trouble in understanding why the football league winners don't necessarilly win the last match of the season or can have the title sewn up before they get there...

I think it might make a nice change for a novelty day at a sailing club, especially if you tweak it for using a fleet of team racing boats, but as the way to run a week long international regatta designed to decide who the best in the world is? Just too much luck involved, both in terms of weather and in "taking a flyer" and hoping for the best - certainly doesn't allow consistancy to pay.

Actually probably with the logistics involved very few people will go home but not sure how many people would do the prize giving!

All the time there is a beat in a sailboat race none sailors are never going to get it.

"He went round that last buoy first why is he not first now"

"He went the wrong way"

"That's not fair, how did the others get to go the right way and he didn't"

Answer that question with any logic and certainty and you can provide a solution for them, answer it not and all that remains is to line them up and drag race in a straight line or around a beam reach circuit will be the only way you'll get the typical Sun reader and or some Mail readers to work out who's winning and why.

It's stupid even trying to explain to none sailors and for the most part they are not really watching if we're honest with ourselves, so all this fiddling about does is inconvenience us and ours (How can you pass on knowledge of how to win stuff when the goal posts keep changing).

Originally posted by Jon Emmett Therefore my concern is always that "the best man wins"...

A worthy sentiment, but who is the best man, the one who is consistent across a series or the one who can really turn it on when the pressure is at its utmost?

Is the problem I've always had when looking at scoring systems even at my humble club level. If A and B are very close a tweak to the scoring system may put one ahead of the other, but how on earth do you work out which one should be ahead? If on the other hand A is clearly better than B then the smart money is tweaks to the scoring system wouldn't make any difference anyway.