Just like John Alani I'm on the wrong side of the big pond to be affected by what is decided. However this thread did got me thinking about it.

Just a few wild idea's :

Why should any class get preference over another with respect to the Alter Cup slots ?

Why should some F18 sailor get 3 chances at getting in while most others are only getting one shot ? Some sailors like an Nacra F18 sailor are getting one shot through their nacra nationals, one shot through their F18 nationals and one shot through their local area qualifier. While say a non aligned sailor will get only 1 shot through his local qualifier. And this sailor will be especially unlucky if his qualifier is one of the big ones with over 20 boats participating.


This is hardly a fair ruleset.

So allow me to propose a totally different approach.

Why not make the allotting of slots more dependent on boats entered. If you win 2nd place in a 24 boat fleet (area K) then you have more ground to claim a slot then when you win 1st in a 5 boat fleet (see area H of this year). So why not give him that ?

So here my proposal :

First, the winner of last year needs a slot and at least 1 wild-card slot is handy to have. The latter gives the Alter Cup committee some way of adressing freak phenomena during the qualifiers. So lets reserve 2 slots; still leaving 18 slots to be devided.

Now line the events up, in decreasing order, by the numbers of boats that have finished least 1 heat. Area's without a qualifier event are deleted from the list.

Each area still in the listing gets a slot.

Then each area having more then 10 boats finish at least one heat will get an additional slot, preference to place in the listing. Then same for each area having more then 20 boats etc. This continues till there are no more slots left or till you've run out of events having rights to more slots.

If slot are left over, which is likely under the current participation at the qualifiers then these slots all become wild-cards that can be petitioned.



An example taking this years qualifiers.

Area K 24 boats (taken from last year) => 3 slots
Area D-S 21 boats => 3 slots
Area E 18 boats => 2 slots
Area G 13 boats (taken form last year) => 2 slots
Area F 12 boats => 2 slots
Area J 9 boats => 1 slot
Area D-N 7 boats => 1 slot
Area C 8 boats => 1 slot
Area H 5 boats => 1 slot
Area A/B no qualifier held so no slots

Assigned : 16 slots + 1 last year winner = 3 slots are left for petitioning (wild cards).



This way each sailor gets an pretty equal chance at getting at the Alter Cup if his skills are sufficient.

Area's with small qualifier fleets are not favoured, neither are sailors who happen to belong to 3 seperate slot assigning groups like Hobie Tiger, F18 class and Area X. Or nacra A2, A-cat class and again area X.

Also area's able to hold qualifiers with large fleets tend to sustain a racing cirquit of higher skill levels. Such area's get now to send more sailors to the Alter Cup making the cup more heavily contested. This system will prevent any qualifier event from being more heavily contested then the Alter Cup itself. The current system certainly allows such a thing to happen now.

Also it really awards area's that get more then 10 boats at their qualifiers. It will be in everybodies interested to get Joe out on the water as well. Maybe this directly helps participation. It will certainly make organising a succesful qualifier more rewarding.

Also a sailor maybe an excellent sailor inside his class but be pretty mediocre in an qualifier event. Therefor it is far best to have the qualifiers determine slots. You don't want this guy at the Alter cup when 5 other sailors from his own area would beat him already. This would be fair to nobody. Especially not to the 5 sailors who have better skills but don't belong to any favoured class. What if John Casey/Kenny Pierce were last years winner. Then some other I-20 crew from Florida could possibly get a slot while having been merciless beaten at the qualifier by no less then 11 other crews. Not the sort of thing you want to happen.

Wouter