Mostly we race open class here and wait for the last boat to finish. But when for some reason it is decided that the fleet should be split we race in the following way.

Split the fleet at texelrating 110. How can I explain this threshold best ?

Prindle 18 with spi just falls into the fast fleet and Prindle 18 without a spi just falls in the slow fleet. You can now work out which boats fall in what fleet.

So, then a normal sized course is layed out so that the fast boats have sufficient room to manourvre and so that the boats will quickly spread out.

The fast fleet will than do 3 or 4 laps and the slow fleet will do 2 or 3 laps depending on the course and make up of the two fleets.

Then we have a single start. And as a direct result of the difference in laps all boats finish at about the same time. Because a Hobie 14 that is 40 % slower than a I-20 will complete a 2 lap course in about 2/3 * 1,4 = 93 % of the time a I-20 crew will complete their 3 lap course.

When so desired a combined listing can be composed by multiplying all of the slow fleet corrected times by 3/2. This is of course a variation of the averaged lap time setup. This variation allows the RC to run the races on the water without any communication with the sailors. During the skippers briefing everybody is told how many laps they have to do and that is it.

Another advantage of this setup is that changes in winds for example do not influence the handicapped scoring much as all boat spend equal amounts of time on the water and so experience the same changes in conditions and to the same magnitude.

This setup is therefor also a trick to make handicap racing more accurate.

But best part is that you have a single start and a grouped finish of all boats within a span of say 15 minutes after 45 minutes racing. So with this system you have a turn around time of 65 minutes while doing 45 minute races.

It is very difficult for staggered start sequences to have a turn around time that is less than this particular averaged lap time setup.

And of course no-one, from the best I-20 crew to best H14 sailor, is waiting longer than about 10-15 min for the fleet to finish and the start of the sequence for the next start.

It is actually a good setup and sailors seem quite happy with it.


Wouter