Stephen reported in the wildcat thread that:



It sounds like this is bothering a lot of cat sailors in Aus, and I for one am tired of hearing about it 3rd hand so I thought I'd start a separate thread on the subject (apologies to the rest of the world - this is very Australian oriented).

Some points:

1) The Mosquito class doesn't decide it's VYC handicap. Yachting Victoria's handicappers do this based on the results they get from clubs and regattas. They have no interest in giving the Mosquito a favourable handicap.

2) If you look at the VYC handicaps on the Yachting Victoria web site you will see that the standard Mosquito (cat or sloop) is one of only five cats that have a "Reliable" handicap (84). The adjustment made for the spinnaker is bigger than the VYC's standard formula and bigger than any other cat that has added a spinnaker. But this is realistic because being a slower and smaller cat than most the Mozzie gets more benefit from adding a spinnaker.

3) Those two Mosquitos at the Wildcat regatta last weekend represent the fastest Mosquitos in Australia - they were 2nd and 3rd at the last nationals and number 1 was no faster. Don't expect them to be easy to beat on handicap.

4) At the Wildcat regatta the winning Mosquito finished 1st in 4 races (4th & 5th in the other two), but if you add in the times of the Taipan 4.9 sloops (a separate division on the same course and start) he was actually beaten home in two of these races and only finished first in two races out of the six. Hardly a walkover.

5) Yachting Victoria apparently disagrees with the notion that the Mosquito with spinnaker has a favourable handicap since just last week they have raised it from 79.5 to 80 (back where it was 2 years ago).


Some examples:

In Feb 2004 I went to the Kurnell Cat Club regatta and won my division against Taipan 4.9 sloops and Nacra 5.8s - all to the tune of loud wingeing about the Mosquito handicap. After the event I combined the results of the other two divisions which had F18s, Tornados, and Nacra 14s. I could do this because we all sailed the same course. What I found was that overall I was actually placed only 8th. The sad fact was that my division was not sailing as well as either of the other divisions and I was first in the division, not because of my favourable handicap, but because the division as a whole was not sailing to their handicap.

Mozzies regularly attend a regatta in Twofold Bay where we sail against Hobie 20s, 18s and 17s and an occasional A-class. Since we have started using the spinnakers there has been grumbling about the handicap, despite the fact that on the water the Mosquitos are often among the first to the windward mark (no spinnaker required!). This just wouldn't be possible if all the boats were sailing to their handicap.

In the final race of the Wildcat Regatta last weekend the F18s, Taipan 4.9s and the miscellaneous division all started together (because some had gone home). The first Mosquito reached the first windward mark with only a couple of F18s and a couple of Taipan sloops just ahead of him. The rest of the "fast" cats shouldn't expect to win on handicap when they are starting a race from so far behind.

At McRae a couple of years ago some of the A-classes were outraged that the best Mozzies were actually finishing mid-fleet among the A-classes and with a huge handicap advantage as well. Well it sounds bad until you realise that the leading As were over a leg ahead and that they could actually beat the Mozzies on handicap. Why should an A-class that's obviously way off the pace expect to automatically beat a smaller (older) class on handicap?



In summary, it's easy to watch a mozzie with a spinnaker go past a Taipan 4.9 or an A-class downwind and then have a whinge about the Mozzie handicap. It's another thing to objectively look at regatta results over time and try to form an accurate idea of a classes optimum performance - like Yachting Victoria does. I'm not saying the Mozzie handicap is perfect and I don't think it should have gone back to 80 but the only positive thing we can do is to make sure Yachting Victoria receives copies of all regatta results so they can make the handicaps as accurate as possible, and get on with the sailing.