If you scored the race by elapsed or corrected time by the day and awarded non starters points = to finisher + one. The ovewall race would remain competitive and shift the weighting from successful starting through surf and more towards sailing the course. If only one boat starts out of 20 then the rest of the fleet drop a point and the race continues. The successful (lucky or crazy) boat would then decide to race the leg and bank the single point or return to the beach and move on to the next leg with no change in fleet standings.
Geesh mark...you've got to quit making more sense 'cause I'm getting tired of agreeing with you.
Personally, I like the elapsed time scoring - it is interesting (for us anyway) to carry the time day to day and work out where we need to be over 40 to 60 hours of racing and the fact that it usually comes down to minutes on the last day...that's pretty exciting.
I'm kind of neutral on the idea of scoring by finish position w/ low point win but as it relates to penalties it makes things a WHOLE lot easier and less arbitrary. For instance, when a team misses a mark of the course and cuts a corner...BOOM...DNF for the day and their score is # of boats + 1 score...done. Boat breakdown or problem getting out of the surf...clean DNF for the day. As much as I like the elapsed time scoring from an interest and excitement perspective, I also don't like having drama surrounding arbitrary time penalties that may or may not seem fair to me. There has definitely been a history of a lot of drama surrounding these kind of penalties over the last several years. I would be willing to give it a shot....but here's the kink I haven't had time to consider...but do you consider allowing throwout? (I would think not - at least initially).
The one drawback I do see of low point scoring is that if you don't structure it correctly, the winner could potentially pack up on the last day (especially if there is a throwout) and I don't find that particularly interesting.
