I've taken the F18's and F16's out of the NAM-REM race listings and this is what I have found.

Elapsed time scoring :




Corrected time scoring Texel :




Corrected time scoring US D-PN :




I think it is save to say that US D-PN is favouring the F16's over the F18's. The grouping of F16's at the top is suspicious at least.

But more importantly look at how well the F16's are doing in relation to the F18's on elapsed time !

Indeed, the best F18 crews were not present at this NAM-REM race event as they had their F18 nationals the same weekend. Still the crew skill level of the F18's and F16's who did enter was alot more comparable then when the hot shot F18's were on the line as well.

Wouter

Wouter,

What do they look like with SCHRS ?

F16 1 - 0.994
F16 2 - 1.020
F18 - 1.005


Also, how windy was it and what shape was the course.

Cheers

Simon

Here you are :

Wouter,

How windy was it ?

What shape was the course ?

Hi Wouter,
Martien Kooyman here from the Blade NED015, saling with Frank van Marle, the participant from the global challenge who tried to sail under water all the time.
First time on the forum, meanwhile finding out how it works as it is not my thing normally.

I agree with you that the F16's did very well at the REM Race. Good for promotion of the class in The Netherlands! I see you are trying to compare with the F18's. As you mentioned the best of the F18 class were not there. This is however not to be taken lightly when comparing. The level of the Dutch F18 class is very high with the top sailers nearly at Olympic class level. (see for instance Micha Heemskerk and Bas Tentij as current European Champions F18). I just wanted to mention this to put thing into perspective.

Last Global Challenge proved to be very succesfull for us, not in results but in experience. We learned a lot, mostly while not sailing as you know. But being among a good group of F16 mates all learning how to cope with this relatively new class was very helpfull.
Hope to see more Dutch F16's at Ronde pampus on the 15th of September. We are thinking of going there.
Cheers,
Martien

Welcome to the forum Martien !



Especially since your crew had a 3 hour master class with Greg Goodall himself !


With respect to the F18's and F16's. Indeed, the best F18's crews were at the Dutch Nationals. Still I think this particular NAM-REM race data set to be more dependable because these hot shots weren't there. It helps no-one when the all the rock stars are on F18's while we, the F16's crews, are still best identified as hard working amateurs.

When the F16's can have talented sailors like Mischa, Loos and Geijssen on board then we can race and compare the performance of the F16's directly with the best of the F18 crews. Till that time we just have to find data were crews of comparable skill sail against eachother on different boat types.

Still, there was one Hot Shot on the F16's, Greg Goodall, and if we take him as a benchmark despite the fact that this was his first sail on the Viper, then I think the F16 and F18 crews at the event did well enough.

Wouter

F3-4



P-shaped: upwind, 3 mile beam reach off-shore, then back to shore further downwind - a bit too tight to carry the kite the whole way, then downwind to the finish.

Paul

Actually it was at least a stable force 4 during the whole race, with a high 4/low 5 in the beginning.

See the measurement graph below. The race was running from 13:00 onwards if I remember correctly and halve the fleet had finished by 16:30.

Force 3 = 3.4 till 5.4 m/s (6.6 till 10.5 knots)
Force 4 = 5.5 till 7.9 m/s (10.5 till 15.4 knots)
Force 5 = 8.0 till 10.7 m/s (15.4 till 20.8 knots)





Scooby, I can give you more weather and course info if you so require. Things like graphs of tidal current speed and wind direction etc. I can also give you to locations of the various bouy which you may use to form the course in Google Earth or something. Basically I got enough data to analyse the race.

Wouter

Wouter,

Thanks, that would be very usefull.

Also, what was the skill level in the fleet ?

How would the top F18's fair in the F18 worlds for example ?

Were there Single handed F16's flying kites on any of the reach - I assume they were flying them down wind, but struggling on the reach.

Also did they use Sailwaver to score it,if so can I have a copy of the race.

Pretty equal among all boats.



Hard to say, bottom halve of the fleet I guess. But we must not overlook the fact that ALL the crews in this fleet are of that level. There is absolutely no point in comparing any of them to the professionals and semi-professionals that make up the top halve of the F18 fleet in any Worlds. These are not Bundocks, Kenbeeks, Hagara's or Boulogne's (to name but a few). The only sailor of world class level was Gerard Loos on the Volvo Extreme 20 (first place). That guy is seriously fast on a straight line.

All others have full time jobs outside of sailing and often have a family to take care off as well. They are weekend warrior, but a number of them are quite skilled and quite fast on their boats. I would rate them as close to the top of the weekend warrior class.




I'm quite sure that all singlehanded F16's flew their kites downwind. I know I did. On the reach out to the off shore marker no-one pulled a kite. It was a beam reach in force 4 winds with some higher gusts on top of it. Pulling a kite in that was not an option. Maybe the lead of the fleet did but I strongly doubt it. Maybe Marcus, Matt or Hans can answer this question.




I don't think so but the results can be found here.

http://www.wvz.vuurwerk.nl/namuitslag2007.html

Wouter

Hi all,

Maybe for the website, maybe to compare. ECC results.
This race was sailing with F 2-3 (We could just trap/trap not with 2).

Small upwind stretch, then a 12 km downwind leg, 12 km upwind leg, 7 km downwind leg, 7 km upwind leg.

I do think that comparing F16 to F18 is difficult, unless you know which other teams are equally good as you are (boatspeed, tactics, ...)

Regards,
Gill

Gill,

which is why I asked the question regarding skill levels.

Hi Wouter,



I think you are right, lets not pretend we were at the same level as the top teams from the F18 class.





The story I heard is that at the halfwaypoint of the NAM-REM race the Viper was the no. 1 F16 and 4th boat of all. Then they went for a bouy downwind that appeared to be a local bouy from a sailingclub that had nothing to do with the NAM race. They had to back-up upwind again to round the correct bouy losing may minutes. At that moment some of the other F16's rounded the mark. Marcus waiving with a big smile as he passed Greg and Frank! "Even hotshot can make major mistakes". Still an impressive performance of Greg and Frank on the Viper!

Hope to see more Dutch F16's at Ronde Pampus 15th September.
Cheers,
Martien Blade Ned015

Howdy Martien,

I think you have been mislead on the Viper's misfortune in the Nam-Rem race.

My view of the world on this day goes like this.

Start of the race was dominated by Matt Mcdonald with Hans, Greg, myself, Gill & Geert chasing closely behind. The positions behind matt only changed due to the wind shifts & patches that were occuring. Just prior to the first gate matt suffered some brain fade and lost some advantage out to sea & literally all of the abovementioned F16's went thru this gate within 2 minutes of each other (Hans was leading and had overlayed the gate). After goin thru this gate the breeze was really swirling & patchy which enabled Hans to take off into the distance with Greg, myself & Matt to battle it out to the turning mark ( Gill close behind & Geert broke some gear).
The reach out to sea was dominated my Matt as he passed myself & was closing on Greg ( infact I believe we both closed on Greg). Hans was 3-4minutes in the lead. As Greg, Matt & myself went around the sea mark, we were within 30 seconds of eachother with Gill 1-2 minutes behind.
The reach from this sea mark to the gate was a bit tight for kitework. Hans & myself elected to sail higher without kites & Matt and Greg went low with kites (Gutsy move, but every time I looked under the foot of my main all I saw was kite luff's stalling & flogging without making any significant grounds).
I went for the kite on 1 occiasion for about 10 minutes & still decided the rhumb line was more achievable without the kite. When I saw Matt approaching with a broken spi pole, my immediate reaction was that's the risk for trying the kite (all the shock loads that occur when trying to sail high) was not worth it.
At about this point greg was 500-700m lower than Hans, myself & Matt. Greg then dropped the kite to lay the gate for the run back to zandvoort. They were sailing pretty high for about 200-300m before they saw us smiling at them <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" /> & they then realised the gate was lower & reached to the gate where only 1-2 minutes covered Hans, myself & Greg (Matt was now out the back door with no spin available). After the gate (all spinnaker work),I got past Hans & put an extra 8 minutes on greg, gill closed the gap to greg as did Frank Boom.

So at the end of the day I believe the gate error probably only cost greg about 1min, mavbe 1.5min at the absolute maximum.

If we are talking performance's for the day, My ranking of upwind speed was dominated by Matt & the downwind speed dominated by Hans & Myself.

Just my obvervations.

I recall the Noordwijk race course to be about level with the NAM-REM race marker that Greg missed initially. Its gate was on a beam reach from the NAM-REM race marker. I actually spinnakered down deep for the first 2/3 of the leg to this marker and then doused the kite to broad reach to the mark. I felt that was the fastest way I could cover the ground. In doing so I passed only some 200 meter above the gate of the Noordwijk race course. I had been running very deep under spinnaker as in those waves I could not trapeze and keep my footing.

All in all, I too feel that Greg didn't loose too much time by this mistake. But Greg and Frank can tell us all exactly how much it was. But either way I fail to see how they had to sail upwind to make the marker when the gate of the local race (downwind mark) was already on a beam reach to the NAM-REM marker.

Wouter

Thank God for digital camera's

Often these store various data with the picture taken. One of that is time. Scroll down on the picture pages to see the data fields and the time of photographing.

From a series of photographs, starting on the page

http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main...amp;amp;g2_itemId=6378&g2_page=3


I've found the following data.

By the way the start was at about 12:22 (taken from another picture data field) and 15 F18's raced in this fleet. I have no pics of Hans Klok, Greg Goodall/Frank van Marle or Paul Warren/Ann Powter going through the gate. Neither of F18's that finished as the top 3 at the finish of all F18's. However 2 of these only were 3+ minutes ahead (at the finish) of the F18's that I do have a photo's off. SO I don't expect them to be too far ahead of the Nacra Infusion at the gate of Noordwijk, if indeed they were ahead then.


1st through gata at Noordwijk = John de Vries and Maarten Hoek (boat type = John the Vries Special)

13:20:19

proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6432


2nd through gate : Gerard Loos and Pieter van Ruitenburg (Volvo Extreme 20)

13:22:49

proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6434



From now on the placing itself is not known as I do not have all the pics.

Nacra Infusion : Jaxon Deelman and Margot Berkman (later 5th F18 at finish); you can already see Matt and Marcus in this picture.

13:30:21

Proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6436



Matt McDonald/Bart Hoek and Marcus Towell (together)

13:30:54

proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6438


Frank Boom and Phill Brander

13:32:11

Proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6440


Gill de Bruyne and Kathleen Vandenbulcke

13:32:41

Proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6442


Charley and Johan Dorsman (Nacra F18; later 4th F18 at the finish)

Proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6444

13:33:16


Geert Ruesink and Karin Weeda

13:38:21

Proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6446




Wouter Hijink and John/Paul Alani

13:39:32

Proof : http://f16.beasts.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=6448


And indeed we both passed Geert only seconds later when his race was ended due to a shackle failure.

By the way I had a monsterously bad start. I had to tack away and gybe to get the startline. The whole fleet started ahead of me and I was breathing bad air for a good 10 to 15 minutes. Then I had gotten out to sea and into clear air. In the first hour 80 minutes (out of 204) I had lost 7 and halve minutes on Frank/Phill already and 10 minutes on Hans and Marcus. In the following two hours I only just another 10 minutes on Marcus, another 6 on Hans and only a few seconds on Frank and Phill. In the same timeframe I only lost another minute on the Nacra Infusion. The Nacra F18 by the Dorsmans finished together with the infusion but at the gate it was trailing the Infusion by 3 minutes. In effect, I finished 10 minutes after this Nacra F18 but during the remaining 124 minutes of racing they managed to gain 3 minutes on me. Both F18 crews are better then me but the difference is not to large. I know both crews well from our club racing.

This is also how the racing felt to me. After the gate at Noordwijk I felt as if the boat sped along much better. I don't know why, I guess I had gotten into the rithm then. Most of my loses were made during the first hour of upwind work. After the gate at noordwijk another shy hour of upwind work and a beam reach followed.


Wouter

Hi Marcus!
Thanks for clearing my view of a world I wasn't even on that day... (Sadly) So the mistake of the Viper wasn't that big afterall. I understand now that up till the halfwaypoint the first F16's were all pretty close. That must have been exciting. Downwind however was were the difference was made. You must have done very well in gaining many minutes at the finish upon Hans, but certainly the rest! Good Sailing!
Cheers from Martien Kooyman (NED015), still looking for the quickest <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" /> way "Downunder" on a Blade!

Just made a page with 3 Gps tracks from the REM race.
http://www.gruesink.demon.nl/appletGPSAR/gpsar.html
(You must have Java installed in order to see this)

The tracks are :
Matt/Bart: You can see that Matt couldn't use the kite.
Gill/Kathleen: No recordings from the upwind part.
Geert/Karin: Upwind ok till the shackle between bridle and pole came loose and the pole fell in the water. After a emergency repair we went through the first gate then decided to go back, too much risk in losing the pole altogether.

When i'm lookin at the upwind tracks from me and Matt, it'almost boring. Almost same speed and tacking angles. What you can see that we are sailing pretty decent angles, about 95 degrees tacking angles.
Also that Matt had the best start position (pin-end) and about keeping their advantage on us.

Speed was just between 10 and 11 knots. Seems not very impressive, still we were doing well upwind compared to most of the fleet.

Also good to see how much a spi can help; Gill was sailing 33% faster (with kite) than Matt (without kite).

Some instructions: select the tracks you want to follow (ctrl-click) and press the CTR button on the screen. This will play these tracks and keeps them centered on the screen.

More instructions can be found at http://gpsactionreplay.free.fr/

I have been able to lay my hands on the missing photographs and I can now give you the complete passing of the first 15 boats at the gate at Noordwijk. This leg from the start to the gate a Noordwijk was an upwind beat that took the lead group roughly an hour to complete. (Start was at 12:22:00 give or take a few seconds)


-1st- 13:20:19 John de Vries and Maarten Hoek (boat type = John the Vries Special)
-2nd- 13:22:49 Gerard Loos and Pieter van Ruitenburg (Volvo Extreme 20)
-3rd- 13:25:54 Peter Snijders, mr. Broekmeulen (Nacra 20)
-4th- 13:27:04 Harold Elfring, Paul v.d. Pauw Kraan (Nacra 20)
-5th- 13:27:52 Mathijn Elhorst, Peter Schouten (Tiger F18; at finish 1st F18 overall)
-6th- 13:29:40 Hans Klok, solo (Blade F16)
-7th- 13:29:46 Greg Goodall, Frank van Marle (Viper F16)
-8th- 13:30:00 Maarten Gaarden, Jan Hoogstra (Nacra F18; at finish 3rd F18 overall)
-9th- 13:30:10 Piet Dijke, Peter van Siepel (Nacra 20)
-10th- 13:30:21 Jaxon Deelman, Margot Berkman (Infusion F18; at finish 5th F18 overall)
-11th- 13:30:40 Matt McDonald, Bart Hoek (Blade F16)
-12th- 13:30:44 Marcus Towell, solo (Aussie Blade F16)
-13th- 13:32:12 Andre Leegwater, Mariska Smit (Tiger F18; at finish 9th F18 overall)
-14th- 13:32:25 Frank Boom, Phill Brander (Blade F16)
-15th- 13:32:41 Gill de Bruyne, Kathleen VandenBulcke (Blade F16)


From now on it gets difficult. Multiple boats start rounding the gate together and I can't read all the sailnumbers properly. See I'll sufficice to name the remaining F16's and a few important F18's (meaning high ranking finishers)

13:33:16 Charley Dorsman, Johan Dorsman (Nacra F18; at finish 4th F18 overall)
13:34:32 Jan van Ek, Petro Stalman (Tiger F18; at finish 2rd F18 overall)
13:34:38 Bas Kuilman, H. Morelisse (Tiger F18; at finish 8th F18 overall)
13:35:10 Paul Warren, Ann Powter (Blade F16)
13:38:21 Geert Ruesink, Karin Weeda (Blade F16)
13:39:32 Wouter Hijink, solo (Taipan F16)
13:39:34 John Alani, Paul Alani (Stealth F16)


Most interesting fact is that the heaviest F16 of them all is also the second F16 through the gate after 67 minutes of upwind beating (1 hour 7 minutes). The F16 who was first through the gate, the lightest F16 measured, was only leading him by 6 seconds. Even more remarkable is the fact that one was sailing 2-up and the other 1-up.

Exactly 1 minute later another Blade F16, this time 2-up, goes through gate. Then another 1-up F16, the Aussie Blade, follows suit only 4 seconds later. Fast forward 1 min and 43 secs and an 2-up Blade F16 rounds the gate only 16 seconds ahead of another 2-up Blade F16. Weight difference between these boats, as in "combined boat and crew weight" ? No less then 30 kg as Frank and Phill were sailing heavy at 160 kg.

This leaves only 1 more Blade F16, a Stealth F16 and a Taipan F16 to beat for the gate. The Stealth and the Taipan round the gate together some 9 min 44 sec behind the the very first of the F16's with the remaining Blade F16 leading them by 4 min and 24 seconds.

Basically all F16's round the gate within 10 minutes of eachother after spending (on average) 72 minutes of pure upwind beating in a nasty chop. The leading six F16's do so within 3 minutes of eachother (twice 1-ups and four 2-ups).

And notice the mix of boats in the top 15 :

6 F16's
4 F18's
3 Nacra 20's
1 Volvo Extreme 20
1 John the Vries Special (Reg White 20 footer)

And all that on ELAPSED TIME !

On corrected time (Texel ratings) all boats in the top 12 listing are in a furious fight for first place, only seconds are seperating them.