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More class racing at clubs ? |
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gbr940
Posting king Joined: 04 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 198 |
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Topic: More class racing at clubs ? Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 7:27am |
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...what banding are you putting into "high-performance"?
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RS400 GBR1321
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Ian99
Posting king Joined: 07 Apr 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 138 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 10:06am | |
Taking the "band" step further, I think there's also a lot to be said for similar speed boats racing boat on boat rather than bothering with the minor handicap timing adjustments.
From looking at what's at my club, Streakers, Solos, Laser Radials and even Enterprises could all easily race together as one fleet. When we do pursuit races, the boats only start a couple of minutes apart, and usually within 10-15 minutes and couple of gusts and windshifts all the boats are jumbled together. You then get decent boat on boat racing within this mixed fleet for the rest of the pursuit race. This is far more satisfying rather than working really hard to get a 30 second lead on a boat which is on paper marginally slower, only for a gust/lull at the finish to wipe out 10 seconds and they end up beating you when there's nothing which can be done about it. |
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Sam.Spoons
Really should get out more Joined: 07 Mar 12 Location: Manchester UK Online Status: Offline Posts: 3398 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 11:47am | |
Agreed, the resolution of the current handicap system is too fine given the sample size of most classes. Pursuit races at L&LSC start the boats in groups at 1 minute intervals (for a 3 hour race) so several classes within a roughly 30 PN point band will start together.
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Spice 346 "Flat Broke"
Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish" |
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davidyacht
Really should get out more Joined: 29 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1345 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 1:54pm | |
I would suggest that most club's would benefit from retaining or working at developing at least one fleet for class racing, probably a single hander, but in a perfect world a two person option as well.
I fully buy into the banded handicap thing, but there are also a bunch of racers who are probably looking for one design racing, and to throw a whole bunch of classes into some kind of level rating class would probably send these sailors to another club that offers one design racing, or onto the open meeting circuit. Whilst an Enterprise, National 12, Laser Radial all may operate within a tight band, you cannot get away from the fact that these boats perform better or worse in different wind strengths and points of sailing, so becomes very course dependent. We had 16 Solos doing our club race on Saturday, the success of the class may be serendipity, but I suspect few of those sailors would turn up if handicap racing was the only option.
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Happily living in the past
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RS400atC
Really should get out more Joined: 04 Dec 08 Online Status: Offline Posts: 3011 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 8:31pm | |
Maybe some people, who previously sailed a certain a class in a few opens and the nationals, and saw the club racing as subservient to that, will choose a boat to get boat-on-boat racing at their home club? Once you admit you're not going to the 470 nationals next year, it gets tempting to make the best of racing against Kev with his 505, so you buy a 505. But I think the premise of this thread is flawed, nationals turnouts are not too bad considering the state we were in until Putin threw covid off the front page. Opens are a mess, everyone's plans are a mess as we catch up two years.
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Dakota
Posting king Joined: 15 Aug 22 Online Status: Offline Posts: 144 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 8:58pm | |
I sort of agree with the above post.
But I do wonder if the open scene for small classes will ever bounce back .
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DiscoBall
Far too distracted from work Joined: 03 Jan 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 305 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Sep 22 at 9:10pm | |
Isn't that just because: (Randomness of PY) X (Randomness of Salcombe) = far too much for the human mind to cope with...? What percentage of the total SYC Solo fleet was that turnout?
Which is also a good description of the level rating classes that were regarded as the high point of big boat racing? Seemed to make quite a lot of people happy at that time? Trouble with strict OD singlehanders is that body size counts for a lot, at least in doublehanders it is possible to accommodate a much wider range The other trouble with being too prescriptive is it makes it harder to manage or facilitate change when it may be needed. Combining a 2-4 boat slow handicap fleet and a 2-4 boat Laser 'fleet' (ie the odd situation where Laser's get special treatment, even though they are essentially a handicap fleet sailing with a mix or rigs) at my old club seems to have lead to better turnouts for the Lasers and the growth of a de facto Solo fleet, while also catering for a number of other singlehanders and the odd doublehander. There was a bit of grumbling from the lasers when it was first changed, but it seems to have survived 5-6 years in that format and it would be interesting to know how much appetite there would be to change it back? My guess is not a lot as a regular turnout of 10 'similar enough' boats probably gives a better race than a 2 identical boats who have helms of massively different ability. |
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davidyacht
Really should get out more Joined: 29 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1345 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 27 Sep 22 at 6:59am | |
Around 40%, but a fair number of our fleet are second home owners. As I said, I suspect an element of our success (we have had turnouts in excess of 20 this year) is serendipity. But it also has something to do with a “band of brothers” vibe, and a regular hard core turn out of ten or so week in week out. My point is not that banded handicapping is a bad thing. Just that there is a hardcore that may prefer boat on boat racing of a one design nature. I would also suggest that it is harder to engender an “esprit de coer” in a fleet of disparate classes than in one class, for all sorts of reasons. Salcombe … random? Never! (Tongue in cheek reed this week’s report)
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Happily living in the past
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