2> U bevindt zich buiten Nederland

Steve - according to Charlie's blog, they measured in one of each, not two zeros.

Gleaned from TA's post over on SA dinghy forum:



Tornado Web Site News

Whew...I like the new Chupacabra...but I'm not a huge fan of it showing up at the Olympics...but still, that was frackin' harsh by an anonymous by-line at Tornado.org. At least they could sign their name to the same report posted that speaks in a derogatory fashion of "lightweight blogs".

The code 0 doesn't seems to perform, it was maybe just to confuse the other sailors.

From ISAF website
Spain’s two-time World Champions ECHAVARRI and PAZ hold a four point overall lead after their win in race 3 and a sixth place finish in race 2. Following the day’s second race in very light 5 knots winds, ECHAVARRI added his view on the controversy that has been surrounding the Code 0 sails, designed especially for light wind conditions that are being used by some teams. “During race 3 there was very light wind – the perfect conditions for Code 0 boats. However, the Code 0 boats didn’t perform very well. Looking back at the whole scenario before the competition with the selection between Code 0 gennaker and standard spinnaker, we are glad that we made the right choice,” ECHAVARRI said.

/hakan

Anybody have a linky to the preliminary Olympic Tornado results ?

Want to see how the code-0 is doing.

Wouter

No you dont. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

Saw the 470 ladies medal race live on TV this morning, great to see the Dutch team take the silver.

As an experiment it would have been better to see more then one crew try to code-0 (hooter) in this field. However, the results by team USA so far (only one with code-0 and 2nd in 2004 olympics) is far from promising.

Race 1 : 9 knots average winds placing 14th out of 15 competitors ; 7min:58sec behind winners
Race 2 : 7 knots average winds placing 12th ; 11:12 behind winners
Race 3 : 5 knots average winds placing 7th ; 2:49 behind winners
Race 4 : 20 knots average winds placing 11th ; 4:04 behind winners
Race 5 : 11 knots average (decreasing 13->8) winds placing 12th ; 2:58 behind winners
Race 6 : 8 knots average winds placing 14th ; 2:20 behind winners
Race 7 : 8 knots average winds placing 15th ; 4:04 behind winners


They are now 14th overall out of 15 competitors with only 1 regatta point ahead of the last place holder China whose team has already scored a OCS and a DNF ! At 70 points overall the US team with the Code-0 is 50 points behind the scoreboard leaders (1st and 2nd) who are tied in points. Even the number 10 in the listing is 22 regatta points ahead.

This is a pretty bad result for the 2004 Olympic silver medalists. With only 3 more races to go (max 45 point in even when DNS) they are off the podium for sure and will not even be able to break into to the top 10 places. The latter assuming the French team at 10th overall keeps doing what is has scored so far leading to an end score after 10 races of 69 where the US team already has 70 points and can never get below 73 even when scoring 3 bullets in the remaining races.

Either the crew was unlucky with some sickness or the Code-0 is one big dud. The conditions at Qingdoa seem to be similar to Athenes in 2004 where this team scored a silver medal.

For details like mark rounding times etc see :

http://results.beijing2008.cn/WRM/ENG/Schedule/SA.shtml

Wouter

Actually, I think the results are a mixed bag of issues.

firstly, no team would attempt using a new technique or piece of equipement in an Olympic regatta without first knowing it would provide an advantage. Team USA, NED and PUR were all testing this sail as partners for over 1 year and were convinced in it's potential.

However, it seems to have a tight performance range and the added benefit in the relatively shorter races seems marginal.

Finally, the venue has lived up to expectations...not only light winds, but highly variable pressures/directions. Just look at the wide swings in the fleet mark roundings in most of the races.

I agree it appears the code zero Chupacabra has not workout for team USA, but I also don't think this regatta is a satifactory test of it.

And why not, this sail was devellopped by 3 highly professional teams over a period of years in a class with highly skilled and dependable sailors using the conventional setup and thus acting as the benchmark. How much better can a real life test be ?

I find it pretty instructive that 2 out of 3 teams who were party in developping this sail choose not to use it. Apparent they knew indeed what its limitation are and decided against it as soon as the predictions didn't show a series of days with the assumed narrow band of conditions.

I compare it to the test with the hydrofoils in the C-class; sure some say that that too was only one event with only 4 boat participating. However, for something to be a "new wapon" it needs to show significantly improved results at one point. Both hydrofoils and this code-0 aren't doing that in their first real tests. As a result the questions presents itself whether this pathway is sufficienty promising to continue. Again the current results are far more supportive of a negative answer then any positive one.

Of course this all withing the limits set by the Tornado class rules and upwind-downwind bouy races. The code-0 has proven itself within the other classes like the ORMA-60's and indeed the Extreme-40's. However mostly for other reasons then all out performance.

Wouter

Wouter,

An reason why this regatta might not be a good place to make decisions on the code 0 after the americans poor regatta is, maybe, they just had a bad regatta.

Tom Slingsby current Laser world champion also had a poor regatta result finishing in 22. Can't blame that on a poorly perfoming Chupacabra.

Skill, mental conditioning and equipment. Charlie and John have proven that they are good under pressure (Athens). They have good understanding of the geography/meteorology. That leaves the equipment.

To see what they say about it themself: http://www.t-squaredracing.com/content/view/103/25/

Sailing is a weather dependant sport and everyone knows you can not depend on the weather.

ALWAYS choose your equipment for the versatility and abity to perform in the widest possible range of conditions.

If you are playing the numbers game and can change equipment like a recreational windsurfer changes sail size as the wind varies through the day, OK. If you are planning for a week or longer event well off into the future, selecting equipment for a narrow performance band will be a big mistake more times than not.

There were only 2 of the 3 teams at the Olympics. So only 1 of the 3 teams choose not to use the sail.



I have used similar sails and I suspect the problem has to do with the difference between testing and racing. I found a hooter to be a big advantage when sailing against only a few boat, in clean steady air. I found it sucked when faced with the chaos of many boats going in different directions and shifty varying winds

Yes, but Bundock and Ashby had a code-0 project of their own that was pretty well developped. They too decided against it and that makes 3 teams in total even when the PUR guys fell away as you say.

Wouter

From Team USA Blog:



So, having a strong current shortened the time spent going to weather, increased it goign downhill...further minimizing the benefit on the CO.

Seems the winds were above what had been seen in the 3 year lead up. I'm not convinced the C0 is a failure based on this regatta.

one could also have said :

... further aggrevating the drawbacks of the CO.


Kind of halve full halve empty type of things.

Wouter

Team USA is now in last place, even behind the Ukrainian and Chinese teams (the Chinese even scored an OCS and DNF).
Results

Talk about a bad case of Code-0 tunnel vision with the <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

So we can probably wrap this thread up with...



NO