I put my back out lifting a GP14 that was full of water ont he saturday and to be honest shouldnt of sailed.  I couldnt hike so good thing it was a drifter.  Also i think i took too many pain killers as i was nearly sick twice!!!!  I didn't have the stength to give a porper push off shore and then put my dagger board in too early (its a shallow beach isn't it!) so thanks for rescuing me.  To be honest it was irresponsible me sailing but we had loaded the trailer up and my mate doesnt have a tow bar yet so i was committed.  Great course and a nice event.  It would of been smashing if we had of had more wind and my back wasn't nailed.  I sailed to the wrong mark up the first beat which shafted me as i was then stuck in the middle of the 4's.  Anyway enough excuses, neither Charlie or I looked like we would catch you!  I think i will deffiantely be back next year, hopefully there will be more wind and i will be able to move better.

Well I was reliably informed that the 'course is designed to suit everyone, including asymmetric spinnakers', however when I had the 100, I also thought 'no thanks' when I saw the course and wasn't disappointed with my decision, so I don't blame you mate.  I still think the event would benefit from some proper windward/leeward provision, especially with the swarm of moths that are gathering there these days.   

As for too much traffic, last year was quite special in that the water levels were very, very low and tbh, the race officer did well to get a course where only a few boats touched down around the edges. Water levels are up again this year, so certainly this might be a lot less of an issue.

As for myself, I'm planning to make the Stevie Nicks again, but I'm not in the slightest bit interested in anything with a pursuit race.  I would have loved to do the GGP, but family commitments see me at the Hackney Empire with the little 'uns.  As for any other handicap events... Round the Island (mersea in august) and the FOM are the only others I'm looking forward to.  

POSH is a great event.  Its on our calender as an event again this year.  I must say bullsh!t aside it was great sharing a course with the 100's.  I had some great racing, when the breeze came up.  The wind virtually stopped when your start gun went and i thought we would be closer to you, but we started a minute before the 4's and saield to the wrong mark, which meant we (well I) got stuck in the middle of the 400 fleet  and i got spat out the back.  The D1 likes a bit more breeze IMO but others in the fleet seem to get it going well enough in the light stuff, i have never been quick in any boat (in any condition to be fair) but i tend to be on the money or faster when the breeze is up.  Partly down to my short attention span, i get bored and loose concentration and interest very quickly unless its at least hiking weather.  D1 does look big compared to the 100, i had forgotten how small the 100 felt.  Still lets hope to have a race over the winter at somewhere in more breeze with fewer pesky 400's

No worries mate, I don't think anyone would take your (very valid imo) comments as a dig at the club; it's just a simple fact that a lot of folks with asymmetric boats don't and won't travel for a.n.other handicap race where they are disadvantaged... might as well stay at home and have your arse handed to you by your fellow club members instead 

I know Chris and Rich both participate on the forum here, so they might be in a better position to comment on merits of the course for asymmetric sailing.  However I'd have thought it's upwind, unarig, short kite run, unarig... or that's what I recall seeing Tim do a couple of years back.  I even sent him an email saying how impressed I was by the D-One's relative speed in unarig tight reaching at the time!  I thought he didn't suffer as badly as I would have done in the same position, but either way, you don't buy asymmetric boats to sail tighty-whities- best leave that for unarigs and displacement symmetrics.

http://www.grafham.org/?p=4211# - http://www.grafham.org/?p=4211#

 

Yes, it was a trapezoid (square) course last year (or actually earlier this year as it was postponed) for all the handicap races with a round the cans for the longer pursuit race. There were several assys - B14s/400s etc. They could definitely fly their kites on the reaching legs as it was set up.

 

I have done another handicap event where the first race was a triangle course, the second race was a triangle/sausage and the third race was a windward/leeward - which was excellent as there really was something for everyone.

 

As for traffic, Draycote, I thought, dealt with this pretty well, having 3 separate starts for fast/medium/slow fleets. I thought the traffic was a lot less than you get at the Stevie Nicks.

That said, I doubt there's that much empirical evidence to change the EPS from one year to the next... 

 

I'll do some others instead. Shame the brass monkey is included i quite fancied doing that one.

Surely you're trolling....but if so the Billy Goats Gruff are stomping over my particular bridge and I'm biting!

What a pile of negative horse poop.  If you don't like the Series then just still think of them as excellent individual events and ignore the Series....unless you were turning up as a competitor v the 'Ball last year or had holey cellophane sails the year before what relevance did the controversy have for you...

As for crazy handicapping - the clues in the name "The Great Lakes" - gonna happen anyway...

I can't help get riled when folk try and we e on other people's BBQs.  Did 4 of these last year and the best bit was seeing the same faces from all sorts of different classes, including some not seen since 17 year old Graduate days.  Like a FOM but for a really big group....and many were engaged in more than one event simply because of the Series.

And the second best thing was the camaraderie amongst those who survived the Tiger! 

 

No, just stating an opinion based on the fact that I used to really enjoy the events when run on their own and have had gone polar opposite since they have been merged. I did two of the events last year, thinking - as you suggest - that i don't agree with the series but i'll have a go at a couple of events. I retired from both the events having had a thoroughly miserable time caused mainly by rule abuse (I don't think QMSC would have had enough protest forms - seriously), and further compounded by being rendered pretty much uncompetetive by the great lakes system.

 

The whole atmosphere at the events has changed. They used to be fun. We used to be able to try out new and unproven kit without getting tried hung drawn and quartered on the internet (Exactly what these sorts of events should be used for). We used to be able to sail well, clean and do well without trying to sail people down the fleet. Maybe it's coincidence, but since we've had a series all that has gone to pot and i don't want to do it - so i won't :)

 

If that's trolling or peeing on someone's bbq then so be it, i intend it as a plea to do something to get the events back to where they were four years ago. If you don't like this opinion we'll have to agree to disagree.

I'm sorry you can't find them fun any more - I pity you - my own experience say's that the changes are nothing to with the Series thing...but that's because I still find them rally good fun and am doing everything I can to put the necessary childcare together to go again.  What do you sail?  It might help explain this strange phenonomen: I'm not quite sure about the "We" here - if you only did two events you are neither Matt Biggs nor Andrew Wilde - in which case I could understand you being upset if someone sailed you back or measurement protested you!

Feel free not to do the events cos they've changed....but I'm afraid that it's crap now 'cos someone linked them just doesn't stand up...

And spare a thought for the organisers....in this economic climate we don't need "negative vibes, man" (Sgt Oddball - my all time hero)!

But I'm afraid I don't see the objectivity here...we leap from a perception (personal objective opinion) that the events have changed and not for the better to a perception (unsupported logic) that it's down to the Global Warm-up linked in with a healthy dose of it's all been a bit controversial...which is what from my point of view undermines the posts...and hints at at a bit of subjectivity creeping in.

Too many people out there who need a bit of Oddball love:

Please correct me if i am wrong but i am sure Paramedic sailed a Merlin.  I hope i am wrong if he is upset about the PY thing, given the number of years the Merlins have had it there way at these events.  I also think it was not right that the Merlin boys used the sail juice as a test bed for illegal kit, that sort of stuff should be kept to the classes own circuit.  

I do however agree with Paramedics post over the competitiveness of what used to be a great bunch of fun events being soured some what.  For me completely summarised by the behaviour of the fireball at Draycote (not that i was there) so much so that as i understand it the Phantom sailor packed up and left.  This is not what it should be about.

Anyway this is a great debate, but sadly i was just trying to find out who was going and to try and push for some PY numbers.  Paramedic, please come and race.  it should be about having fun so forget about the morons and just enjoy yourself.  

FWIW - Paramedic's comments aren't the first I've heard to say the nature of the events has changed as a result of the handicapping adjustments and the 'series', but as someone who's only ever entered the odd event on a by-event basis, I can't say I've noticed, nor really cared for my placing in that series.  I've always assumed that whatever the racing, the 'top end' are going to take a heap load more seriously than I ever would- it's one of the reasons they are there, and I am where I am, but hey, they're welcome to it, everyone knows the best sailing's in the bottom half of the fleet!!!

I wanted to write to the organisers about this , but it seems that writing on this forum is the only access we can have to them...

http://grafham.dyndns.org/Gwsc_docs/2012/NOR%20Grand%20Prix%20Dec%202012.pdf - http://grafham.dyndns.org/Gwsc_docs/2012/NOR%20Grand%20Prix%20Dec%202012.pdf

 

Interesting reductions:

 

Phantom 1010

Merlin 980

505 889

100 990

D-1 971

Blaze 1031

Laser 1118

 

Looks about right to me.

 

Let the moaning commence.

http://events.sailracer.info/events/user_files/GJW_Direct_Winter-Series-Handicaps%202012-13-20121112-100258.pdf - http://events.sailracer.info/events/user_files/GJW_Direct_Winter-Series-Handicaps%202012-13-20121112-100258.pdf

V3000 world in order at least

 

Good question as that does seem a very large difference. As I understand it the Sailjuice make their PY based on the front of the fleet, rather than the average (which I'm personally against). JimC did some analysis of our club results that suggested the Laser doesn't exhibit the normal distribution of performance across sailors - the average Laser performance is not far off the top performance. I know Jim caveats this will all sorts of imponderables, but it might partly explain the difference.

 

One other contributory factor is the Phantom does seem to have a sweet spot in specific conditions so if the last five years suited that sweet spot it would also add to this.

 

The number that surprised me was that the RS100 is only 20 points faster than the Phantom. For a boat that has a bigger upwind sail area, is lighter, has greater RM and has another 12.5m2 downwind it is just as surprising as the Laser comparison.

 

Less sail area, heavier, shorter waterline length, wider waterline beam, less stiff, lower RM (even with trap is possible).

 

Most of the time you can attribute characteristics to performance, which is why it is always surprising to see cases where it blatantly doesn't. I think the interesting thing to learn is how some boats buck the numbers and why - there be the path to better boats.

 

 

 

20 at point of posting:

http://events.sailracer.org/eventsites/entries-multi.asp?eventid=51516&eid=143535&event=Draycote%20Dash

whereas the overall series has 47 boats at point of posting (obviously some duplications):

http://events.sailracer.org/eventsites/entries-multi.asp?eventid=51516

 

At last years GGP Lasernut and Andrew Wilde finished first and second in the event.  There was no more than 5 sec between them in either race so it was incredibly close between them at these sort of handicap levels in certain wind conditions.  At the other SJ events where both attended the phantom won out of the two.

 

+1

 

Would be good to see entries for each event, not just the series.  You can't tell this way if an event is almost full and not all of us want to enter all events at once.

I'd imagine LaserNut will turn up, sail his Laser as well as he can accepting whatever handicap he's given and whatever that translates on to the spreadsheet at the end.  That's what happens when you sail a more popular boat, you know whereabouts you are and can get on and enjoy the sailing.  You just assume the PY is some random averageness of the fleet and roll with it.

Oh well, just an observation... but maybe Graeme you should get yourself a Laser and take it to one of these events.  It really would be a true leveller for you, after all you're probably bang on the money for a Radial weight and height wise.

I read about it, in 1994, in Yachts and Yachting.  A glowing review and some lovely 'spray speed' photos showing how glam hiking could be.

You can't now be complaining that it's not actually any quicker than a std Laser are you?  That's just not true... it was the best designed boat us dinghy dwellers neglected to embrace only 5 minutes ago?     

a request far  from my anarchic nature , yon tosspot on his invisible hos is doing my nut in , no longer funny ,

please kill him off 

well he split his wetsuit from too much talking at the FOM....

It's on the grafham site at least...

Originally posted by Wetabix Not true - those are last year's!  Having said that the explique that goes with it is fascinating. I have been using 'club handicap' for a year using the previous winter's Great Lakes handicap as a starting point. I will probably use it more aggressively this year. Another 35 on the Radial.....hmmmmmm..

I also checked the event website and found an updated list, it really wasn't very hard to locate this year's random arbitrary listing and unsurprising the Radial hasn't actually changed since '2012'...

http://events.sailracer.info/events/user_files/GJW_Direct_Winter-Series-Handicaps%202012-13-20121112-100258.pdf - http://events.sailracer.info/events/user_files/GJW_Direct_Winter-Series-Handicaps%202012-13-20121112-100258.pdf