Don't you think the elapsed times will be collected and scored with all three ratings? They were the year you had a sizable F18HT fleet and the N20 fleet. You can't help but want to know who the overall winner is.

Why do you think you can market a big boat and a little boat winner? Think of the headlines of the hometown paper.
It's one race to the public.... It's either elapsed time or some lame attempt to explain handicapping.

IMO, with two OD fleets. The best solution is to score each leg on elapsed time and you score the regatta like a regatta or grab the volvo ocean race mode for scoring. Most believe that the boats are close in performance in breeze. But As Randy Smythe noted... in this kind of racing... you need to win the light air drifter races and survive the breeze on days. So he always built a team and boat to do that. You can't make up the time differences. IMO the public would understand a Tybee 500 race as a series of heats ... It's format would be like the Nascar championship series.

For the following years. .. teams could market... I won two legs and finished 4th overall etc. It sets up a ladder that you can measure improvement with. Smoking the fleet is great but doesn't generate all that much interest if the race is decided early.

Let the big dog eat. Run what you brung. Go big or go home. Worrell didn't do corrected time and look what happened. I say use the Dixie Portsmouth Numbers, straight with no wind corrections in a dirty glass. Watch the participation go through the roof.

Lou, is that you! If it's not it has to be your buddy Lloyd.

Two fleets and an aside corrected overall trophy.All boats start at the same time on the same line.Unless you could calculate an average difference between the 18s and 20s over the forecasted weather patterns, a time difference is BS.

You folks who haven't done this seem to think that this is marketed like an Americas cup. I truly don't think how you score it is going to make much of a difference at all on spectator numbers or sponsor support.People check it out for the adventure and the visual competetion, not the calculated competition.(With the exception of some of the folks on here who THINK too much)The same sponsors usually go to the same teams rather they win or lose, it's about adventure.
It is impossible to score a 1 direction distance race fairly with portsmouth.
I also think alot of you are selling the F-18s way short. It's going to boil down solely to conditions. That was for you DING.
Todd

Like I said, no easy answers...

If I didn't say it, I am definitely NOT in favor of using Portsmouth as a fair way of scoring this race.

Now, I am completely in agreement with Mark S. on the scoring idea. This is "muddying" things which is why I didn't mention it in my last post. A VOR or NASCAR type of scoring would possibly appeal most to spectators.

HOWEVER, I also agree with Todd, that might not be the right answer for this event. If no one is watching anyway, and the sponsors don't care, then do what the sailors want.

Regardless of how you decide to score, at the end of the day, I stand firmly by my belief that the best answer is a single, one-design fleet (or formula). It's not like you're attracting 100 boats...

Mike

It's not whether anyone is watching or cares. They do watch, I just don't think how it is scored is going to play against the drama. Plus if you screw up the racing and the racers go away, there's nothing to watch. The only reason folks on here care about corrected is because they understand it.Non sailors (which comprise alot of the spectators) do not understand the rating system.I bet most big boat sailors(Phrf, Irc etc.)can't relate to portsmouth. How this race is rated or scored is not going to make any difference to sponsors or spectators it will however make all the difference to the racers.
If it was done as a single 1 design fleet there would be either 12 or 8 boats signed up instead of 20.
Todd

Hey Todd

I think you need a mechanism to generate a winner every day. the TV person on the beach wants to show the boats on the beach. boats coming though surf and voice over about the leg's winner and a two sentence answer from the day's winner standing overall and how tough or great it was out there.

With two fleets that presents a problem. I agree with you that Portsmouth sucks for this job but it will generate one psuedo winner for the day... but it's worse... it could be the third boat to the beach!

The solution is to put forth a more interesting answer!

With two fleets of about the same size... I think a preemptive move would be to score like the Volvo or a regatta using elapsed time for the day which will give you the one winner per day and the overall winner of the 500. I would then score the individual fleets on elapsed time. This preserves the traditions year to year for the 20 fleet and lets the F18's generate their own history.

It's a different race then you standard 100 miler open to all comers where you have to score by handicap.

Good luck all
Mark

"If it was done as a single 1 design fleet there would be either 12 or 8 boats signed up instead of 20."

Probably true, but is that documented? Wouldn't people make the effort to find a boat for this race, or possibly even switch classes for the rest of the year so they could practice for this event? I seem to recall that happening for W1000 races.

It sounds like the racers (actual potential entrants) that care have voiced their opinions here and want the split fleet scoring. The rest of us spectators are just trying to give an outside world perspective.

To use the NASCAR analogy (and I'm not a fan, so I'll probably screw this up somehow), it would sort of be like taking the Daytona cars, and racing them with the pickup trucks. Same course, same distance, totally (somewhat?) different speed potential, and you want to come up with ONE overall winner for the media and spectators to easily understand. Good luck...

Mark, I doubt this is what you meant, but the Portsmouth rating is equally unfair for the 100-milers.

Mike

This is not open class racing around bouys. Keep em seperated!

Hi Mike

good point...It is unfair .. but that is life for a mixed fleet race.... some weekends it's all upwind... others it's all down wind. c'est la vie!

Handicapping is actually less of a problem for this kind of race. Two heavy spin cats should perform pretty linearly.
So the fudge factor (texel, ISAF, PN) is a constant. The real separator is the light air races where 1 hole = hours within the OD fleet.

Any non linear performance difference between the F18 and the N20 (eg the better reacher etc) could be solved by allowing different cut spinnakers for the N20's. (uh oh... another can of worms).

I agree, the race is for the racers and I assume they want two independent races. The gallery will do what it does best as well!

Or, 9 trophies, 3 deep in class and first 3 to finish. Plus a Bloomin Onion.

To most on the beach and the non-sailors, they're all Hobie Cats regardless of who wins.

Here's one thing Id like to see, more pretty pictures. All boats should have cool looking sails and hull decals.

Tommy Bahama mainsail. Very easy to see and cool looking.
Krantz's F18 Layline hull decals. Very cool.
Marley's, Castrol, nice work there.

Each year we should be outdoing last years boat graphics. How about team themes? Make it interesting! Viewers outside of sailing couldnt give a crap about F18 vs I20.

Stand by for Tom Cruise moment:

"Help me to help you. Help me to help you". Throw in some Supertramp for effect here.

Got your Thinker stuck in overdrive again, didn't ya?

zoom zoom

Yes, that jumped right off the page when I read Lee's post. I figured that was scope creep, but it looks like we've already blown the doors off of that...

As for graphocs, etc., Nigel and the TB team certainly set the bar. The full spread in major magazines is certainly not something you see every day for beach cats...

Mike

Hey guys,

Why not simply keep the two fleets seperate for their class prizes and have a single combined ELAPSED time scoring fleet with its own prize for the spectators and fun.

In these distance racing stuff the F18 design are really not that far of the pace of the I-20's. I feel so less so that racing eachother simply on elapsed time is pretty fair, especially with the large variations in wind strength and other conditions. Basically, the end result is many times less influences by the design difference then by tactical decisions and simply luck with the LOCAL conditions.

Personally, I wouldn't be suprised if an F18 would actually win the elapsed time scoring. There is definately a set of conditions that will see the F18 favoured over the I-20's just as much certain conditions favour the I-20's over the F18's. Over 500 miles and several days, the conditions could turn out to favour both designs in a balanced manner.

Wouter

There aren't any graphics visible in that (SI article), I've got it hanging on my wall(the other half of the article was about my team). There were other forces at work that got that coverage ,namely that M.W. guy and Nigel's marketing. The Graphics are definitely cool and spice things up, but pricey. Anyone want to donate services for the cause?
Todd

Not here! - now that we're into graphics on performance apparel and we've got two teams, I've not only got two teams to sticker up but now I'm gonna dress 'em too!

Old timers remember when it was Hobie 16's only, no stopovers and the first guy home was the winner. Real bragging rights!

But you got a day and a halfs rest on your off shift.People seem to forget there were 3 man teams.

What years did you do it?
By the way ,that was the Worrell 1000, not the Tybee 500