It is very hard for me to understand why everyone would not prefer to race against identical boats. To me it is a lot more exciting to race a Lightning one-design than catamarans on handicap.

Maybe it's because I was raised believing that sailboat racing is about determining who is the fastest sailor, not which is the fastest boat -- and that can only really be determined in a one-design fleet.

And if you think the fastest guy in a one-design fleet is only fastest because he has the fastest boat, you can have a race where everybody switches boats, with the fastest sailor taking the "slowest" boat in the fleet, and see what happens.

Maybe there are too many people these days who care more about having the fastest boat and don't care about improving their sailing/racing skills.

Maybe some people just don't want to know they are not as good as another sailor and would rather be able to blame it on their boat or on their handicap rating? I don't know. You tell me.

If you want to go fast and don't want to spend the time and energy to improve your skills, why don't you just get a personal watercraft? Want to go faster, just get one with a bigger engine.

Sorry, I am just frustrated because I don't understand it.

Mary,

I don't know anyone that prefers open class over one-design (formula) racing. However, I do know a lot of people that prefer open class racing to not racing at all.

If I wanted to sail one design my choice of boat would be very restricted - and I wouldn't be able to choose a cat. Even then I'd only be sailing one design at traveller events and not at my club where I do 90 - 95% of my racing. So I sail a boat that I enjoy sailing rather than a Laser or something.

Mary,
I agree with you about the (obvious to me) greater fun found in one design racing. I can recall numberous races where I beat a close competitor (or lost to him) by less than a boat length. There is no way anyone can convince me that such a situation, whether your the boat ahead or not, is less exciting than finding out later on shore, after the math is done, how you finished.

In regards to the faster boat syndrome, I'll take a stab at it from my experiences in racing motorcycles. In amateur road racing, what I discovered was that there were two types of semi-serious competitors. One type wanted the fasted, coolest, baddest bike whether or not he could win on it or not. He enjoyed the glamor such a bike brought while in the pits. Serious racers, many on smaller budgets enjoyed beating that competitor with inferior equipment, but always were looking to improve their equipment. The second type of not-so-serious racer wanted a machine that was not quite competitive as this gave him a built in excuse for not winning. This rider was concerned about winning, but, I guess, just didn't think he could ever do it. Both of these not-so-serious racers enjoyed the sport, even if they didn't win. The serious guys wanted the best they could afford and did the best with what they had--usually doing quite well, even on inferior equipment. I think there are similarities here, especially with my first example of some skippers enjoying the WOW factor of the fastest, coolest boat on the beach. For the other example, the portsmouth system builds in a ready excuse whether or not a skipper wants to rest on it.

I think cat sailors though are a different type of sailor. They are not bound by tradition nearly as much as other dinghy sailors seem to be. They also have more "hot rodder" in them and like the speed for its own thrills. This factor leads cat sailors to probably be less brand loyal and always looking for the next hot boat (withing whatever economic limits one has).

This desire for speed leads to the splintering of owners at the upper end of the beach cat scene. We have far fewer participants than motorcycle racing has so the splintering severely limits classes.

Following the analogy, all motorcycle racing is, in effect, formula racing. The manufactures definitely play a game of trying to leap frog one another to have the hot machine in the class each year. It works because the number of participants are larger and there is a (relatively) huge population of street riders who will buy the machines new and used, so its easy for racers to switch and keep up. But it is definitely NOT one design.

David
H20

It is really simple actually. However I'm completely at a lost why YOU never understood it.

I list the points

-1- the difference between what would be the case in a perfect world and what is the case in the real world.

-2- Like Jake said, rather be racing open class than not racing

-3- Formula classes are pretty much one-design actually; there are all ONE (similar) in the important features - dimensions.

-4- The best racing is (For Europe at least) to be found in the formula classes.

-5- The OD cats are just a pain in the neck to sail. Cluncky systems, low quality builds, slow and bloody expensive for what you get. I rather go fast and enjoy myself that way then go slow and know that everybody is garanteed to sail equally slow.

-6- OD class sailors are often strikingly ignorant. A character trade that is difficult to life around when not being ignorant

-7- Equality between boats in an OD classes just based far more on principles of religion than reality. Anybody using sails longer than one year old and platforms more then 2 years old IS NOT COMPETITIVE in the important events. We all know it but for some reason always refuse to accept it. Also Hobie 16's from Europe are differently build the Hobie 16 USA. Marstrom Tornado's are different from say Reg White Tornado's (the original designers) and Ovington 49-ers are different from Bethwaite 49-ers. Their can be serious differences in quality between OD boats, OD sailor however refuse to believe that.

-8- It is WRONG to believe that difference in performance between boats of similar dimensions is anyway near as important as s differences in sailing skill. In the Texel committee we plotted the difference between first few and last few placings in the OD fleets to those in formula fleets. You know what ? The averages were exactly the same ! Meaning design did not play any significant role in this

-9- Open class, formula classes and OD classes are 3 different groups and not 2 different group as (only) OD sailors seem to think. There is no handicap sailing in formula classes and formula boat DO NOT differ much between makes.

-10- All sailors like first in wins racing however this does not mean they also like OD racing where you can't even replace a shackle without an official checking wether it is class legal or not.

-11- A good bunch of sailors like to adjust and tweak their boat to their way of sailing. OD classes tread this a paramount to treason. Not a good way to win hearts and minds

-12- While Hobie 16 and Dart 18 OD sailing is (was) big this does not mean that OD sailing is big !

-13- While H16 and D18 can be regarded as part of OD sailing, OD sailing can not be regarded as similar to H16 or D18 sailing. H16 and D18 are monopoly SMOD classes. OD classes are for example Tornado, Taipan and shearwater classes. Within several limits you can do what you like and modifify the design how you like.

-14- In the world of sports OD is a big minority. How many people Bitch aboit motorcycle or car races NOT being OD. Would Greg Lemonts or Louis Armstrong wins in the Tour be the result of their brand of bikes or the fact that they are better cyclist. Only OD sailors think that somehow getting another make of boat is magical and puts you in front of the fleet, THEY are very ignorant in those things and then demand of us to explain why WE are wrong.

-15- The difference between the fastest F18 and faster H16 in open class races is quite often smaller than the time difference between the fastest H16 and one of the slowest. Every year this is apparent in Round Texel and other large open class fleet events. And now OD sailors want us to believe that difference in sailor skill are lost when allowing to race boats of different make to one another even if all important dimensions are the same ? Often the fastest H16 is past the middle of the pack of F18;s




So, here I gave you 15 reasons to start on.

The other 100 reasons I leave to your own imagination. It took me 15 minutes to type it up. from reading your post to pressing Submit

Wouter

Ohh one more thing

Racing handicap is serious good training for

-1- getting maximum boat speed out of your prefered design.
-2- overtaking slower boats
-3- sailing clear and thinking ahead

Crews who do alot of open class racing are far more likely to be at the front of any OD fleet then guys who only sail a smaller number of only OD events.

Therefor Open class racing allows you to be a better sailor / crew.

Wouter

I prefer open class. The best sailor thing is very subjective to me. Great sailors sail great on any boat they choose to run. It just so happens that great sailors also are frequently on the cutting edge of technology. Then there are others that have so much experience and knowledge on their boat of choice; they can compete very well without "new" stuff. Then there is always where you are racing too. The locals always have an advantage of weather, water and wind knowledge (Rick White reference ha ha ha).

One design has some similar boat problems. A 10-year-old H16 typically will not be as race-ready as a 2yr old. But, depending on who sails that ten yr old boat, it could do very well. The same is true in open class. No matter what boat it is, it still comes down to the sailor. One-design more or less paints a legitimacy of a level playing field to some people. I don't see it as any better as open class.

Wouter has an interesting view of what One Design racing is.

>>-5- The OD cats are just a pain in the neck to sail. Cluncky systems, low quality builds, slow and bloody expensive for what you get. I rather go fast and enjoy myself that way then go slow and know that everybody is garanteed to sail equally slow.<<

This "logic?" would follow that any boat older than... what?...Designed and built today? is now outdated and a pain to sail? Slow? Bad Quality?... come now. They are all fun and fast to sail.

>>-6- OD class sailors are often strikingly ignorant.<<

Awfully broad/mean statement... you including Gavin Colby, Bob Merrick, Mitch Booth and so many more in that?

Wouter, you hurt your case when you make such comments.

Alright I will explain myself




Nope ! JUST the OD classes (actually SMOD) that have remained the same all those years. How many of us sailors really want to sail with 70's block and sheet systems and 70's design sails, TODAY ! I'm sure it is all well and good in the retro department but I rather have the feel of a 00's Harken block and sheet systems and the control of a 00's mainsail design. Never mind paying 00's dollars for 70's technology.

Come to think of it the vast majority of the Tiger sailors want this as well as expressed in the newest Hobie News Letter. So I guess I'm in good company here.





You think Colby, Booth, Dercksen, Ashby, Mourniac, Loos, Bundock and Camenish are anything other then Open class / Formula sailors ? (all under contract by Hobie corp to make a splash in open class racing, talking about buying a win and talking about being SMOD sailors)

Each one of these sailors puts in more mileage in open class / formula events than SMOD events. Booth, Bundock and Dercksen are Tornado and F18 sailors before anything else they are paid to do. Ashby, Mourniac and Loos are as open class/formula as you can get. Their first loves are A-cats and F18's (TRUE F18 not Tiger class). I think only Colby has raced in any serious manner in a SMOD class (being H16) over the last 10 years. I think Booth hopped on a H16 once in his spare time in 2003. Or was that Taylor Booth, his son.

Matt, just a rought guess. How many of all on Hobies payroll would voluntarily choose to own/race in a SMOD class ?

(My guess : Only Colby and only as a side issue.)


Nor is is a mean statement. It is a truthful one, an actual fact. We get in wholely difficult world when truthful is also taken as being mean.

It is also based on cold hard race data. Take it from a guy who has looked at race data in every way for 3 years while working on the Texel committee and the new NMBR system. There is no significant correlation that SMOD is much more fair than Formula racing or OD racing. NON SMOD sailor generally accept the conclusion when shown the data; SMOD never do because, I quote, they BELIEVE SMOD to be more fair just the same. It is a gut feeling they have. They can never produce data to support their believe. This I call ignorant. Believing something against cold hard data as taken from the REAL world, not some IDEALIZED "could be" world





And what do you think is my case ?

Does it hurt open class sailing when I say that most SMOD arguments to highlight their own perceived superiority are wrong and not supported by facts ?

Will pointing out that no Hobie Tiger in the F18 events is OD Tiger compliant hurt open class and formula sailing ?

Will it hurt cat sailing in general when pointing out what is supported by facts and what isn't ?

Will pointing out that in all European SMOD events except for D18 and H16 participation is dreadfully small hurt the the larger catamaran racing scene and potential buyers ?

Will calling SMOD sailors "ignorant" when it is beyond obvious that F18 events attract at least 3 times the number of participating boats hurt the general concensus or the enjoyement of the majority of sailors ?

Does saying to a SMOD Tiger sailor that he needs to learn to sail better if he wants to place higher in the F18 scorings hurt the strive to become better sailors ?

Last I met a Tiger sailor who didn't know what the F18 class was , but he did thought it a pitty that having the F18 class would split up the catamaran scene ! I mean "DUHH! who has split the F18 fleet here, the F18 class or the Hobie corp by creating a SMOD tiger class." It doesn't come any better than that. That is what I call ignorant !

Wouter

Wouter, I'm gonna have to go along with Matt on this one. Besides the people sailing formula and those sailing OD are pretty much doing it for the same reasons. Large fleets with straight up racing.

Now open sailing is a completly diffenent animal all together.

No freaking way Wouter! You have seriously gone off the deep end with that one.

If you race open say a Hobie Wave against an M20 how long are these boats going to next to each other?

Yes, I know it's an extreme example but to say that open sailors are better sailors because they are open sailors is a load of crap.

Dave

Oh I don't know... it can be a tough call between racing open or mowing the lawn.

Dave

Hi Mary

I think your question is trivial.

A more interesting scenario is this
If you have a 5 boat fleet... say... Hobie 20's... How many of those sailors would tell the single P19MX or Nacra 5.8NA in the area to stay home or go sail by themselves.
You could tell him... Hah... we have 5... go sell yours and buy mine and we will have 6.... But that is not likely to happen.... (Hell next regatta you may only have 3 20's.) If you don't consider the sailors on the left over boats .. the end result of one design would be one less sailor to contribute to the local racing scene.

So My quesiton would be... which do you enjoy more.. a larger competitive fleet or a small one design fleet.

The Hobie 16 class in the mid atlantic is very active and quite competitive. However... to be compettive you need to have a small team of 300 lbs or so. This year.. they will try to revive interest by splitting out a payload 600? class for teams and boats that are a bit on the heavy side. Why would a large one design fleet split out the heavyweights and split their class????

Well for one reason... the heavy weights won't come out to play any more.... Its not competitive and its not fun (and they haven't bought a suitable boat for their weight).
So... by recognizing that maintaining competition under a new set of rules may grow participation they have made a positive step forward (but it ain't one design).

Back in the day... the huge numbers of sailors were in the B and C fleets ... Those folks raced and enjoyed the competition... They did not have to train to keep on racing or feel compelled to move up. (do you think they would have been upset to race in B fleet against a P16 or a N5.2 at the time)

My point is that fleets need to favor real competition more so then real one design standards.

So... the question is not Is one design more fun... Rather its Does your strategy (Payload 600, Catfight, Formula, one design) keep the racing competitive and people interested in racing.

Final note... There is an emerging trend to develop Personal handicaps for fleet racing. (Much like golf handicaps.) the idea is that by creating competition in the fleet you will spark and revive interest.

Matt Bounds noted that lots of people stopped racing after they grew tired of watching him and another guy walk away from them.... Personal Handicaps might have kept every one in the game.... Not just Matt and the other guy.

Once again personal handicaps ain't one design... (even if everyone is on your favorite boat.. the TheMightyHobie18) It is all about generating competition.

Take Care
Mark

What did we all used to say about Randy Smyth ? He could sail a bath tube and still win.

Using your example, lets put a Smyth on a wave and and some newby on the M20.

I willing to bet that Smyth beats the M20 around the bouy race course.

Actually I've seen [censored] like this happen between a laser 1 monohull and a Hobie Tiger while racing around the cans. SERIOUSLY !

Would that come close to a a wave/m20 comparison.

No way how you slice it sailing skill is always more important than baot design. And when using handicap numbers the better crews ALWAYS end up higher on the list than less capable crews. Always.

Actually David several handicappers (Mark Schneider under USPN, Nico Boon in Texel and several others) have played around with corrected race results and found that in the vast majority of races you can swing ratings about to say 5 % and still get 97 % or more of the crews at the same placings. 5 % is a huge swing in handicap ratings.

Now I agree that handicap sailing has its own particular drawbacks, I'm not blind but it is also quite obvious that Hobie corp is trying to paint any class not being SMOD as suffering from these issues which is not the case. Formula racing does not suffer from these issues. And to be really honest if you combine F20, F18's and Tornado's in one fleet than you still don't have most of the issue linked to handicapped fleets containing all makes.

And yes, sailors that often race open class are definately better sailors in general. Or else how could Jennifer Lindsay and Kelly Gray beat you and anybody else during the last hangover regatta. Not to mention other events they have won or the fact that at Hangover regatta they outsailed (elapsed time) all boats expect 2 I-20's and 1 Tornado (the other 3 I-20 being beaten on elapsed time). Note how I didn't use handicap ratings yet ! Surely it is not because she has done so much OD sailing in the Taipan class is it ?

I rest my case.

Wouter


(P.S. David I understand what you are saying, but numbers don't lie and if you gether all the data over several years and proces it you will find how meaningless somethings are.)

The OD Hobie system concept was/is excellent where their "worlds" were sailed on cats supplied new for that event by the "manufacturer" and the boats were balloted for before each race so that no one knew which boat they were going to sail on for which race, was, and is, a successful formula for determining "the best sailor" sailing in that event. This form of competition does not rely on "better systems", "better/faster boats" huge outlays of money by the competitors to be competitive, etc, but instead relys on the skills of the individual sailors. There is no argument that this is the best type of "competition" to achieve those results, and it would be nice if this system could be incorporated throughout the entire sailing fraternity, BUT for some reason there are a vast number of sailors who don't seem to want to sail within such a "formalised" type of organisation. For what ever reasons (and there are more reasons given than there are sailors), there are a lot of sailors who want to exercise their "individuallity" when it comes to expressing their personallities in their ownership and sailing of boats. If this wasn't so, every one would be sailing the one, identical type of sailing craft (regardless of what that should be) A similar "state of mind set" can be applied for the ownership of cars - the whole world would be a lot better off, with less polution, far lower costs, more efficiency etc, if everyone on the face of the world drove the same car!! but we all know that this is something that "will never happen". This argument about which "class" is better, which boat is faster etc is about as solid as "smoke on the wind". The craft that their owners are promoting as "the best, fastest, most advanced" today will, by their own definitions, be "obsolete" tomorrow, so just what is the point of arguing about such a transient "point of view"?

In response to the post that you can learn more in an open class; I pretty much sailed open class for 3 years before finally getting into F18. I have learned more in 3 months than I did in that 3 years. I had terrible upwind habits and my performance in open class suffered horribly. There was always the questionable rating system that I could point to as a mental excuse for my lack of performance - but even then, what do I change? I can't look at the Hobie 18 that's pointing higher than me to figure out what I'm doing wrong on my Nacra 6.0; there's no point of reference hence the learning curve is small. I was terrible when I got into F18 but once I got to where I could stay within sight of the other boats on the course, a flood of information followed. Lately we've been in the top 1/3 of the buoy regattas we've been to and we're still learning.

Let me reiterate some facts here...

- The Hobie Cat Company is not the Hobie Class Association.

- The Hobie Cat Company is actually two separate companies. One company is based in France and one based in the USA. France is heavily into the Europe scene and Hi Tech sailing. Hobie Cat USA is in a different market and is focusing on building entry level and recreational products. Both companies trade products. By the way, we are doing VERY well at this point. I think we have made the right choices in most cases as a company here.

- The Hobie Cat Companies and The Hobie Class Association are NOT against Open Class racing or Formula racing.

- The Hobie Class Association is... just that... a Hobie Class Association that is here (guided by bylaws) to promote Hobie Class Racing, not open class racing.

It is always amazing to me that, to promote their views, posters tend to bash the other side down instead. Just like our politics here in the U.S. I guess.

Wait minute I never said that. I said that a crew doing alot of open class racing instead of ONLY a smaller number of strict OD races will be better crews. As in any additional racing will make you a better sailor. Open class sailing is just as valuable in this as OD racing.

We shouldn't be putting any idea's in the heads of novices that open class (club races) are "Pfffww , whatever". Arguably the majority of weekend or wednesday evening club races are OPEN class races. By doing these (with a dependable rating system and I'm working on that ) these novice crews will gether sailing skill alot faster than by sailing OD with that other guy on the same boat once ever month or sailing in a 5 boat OD fleet once every two months.

THAT is what we are talking about here. That is the value of handicap racing.

Not to mention the situation where an isolationist group of a handful of boats get to a large handicapped fleet and get killed because they only trained on eachother and may be trained themselfs to only beat the one that was marginably better in their own group. Tactic are a great example of this. We all know that it heaps more easy to get a good start in a 5 boat start then it is in say a 30 boats start. I've seen it happen at my club. We always race with about 12 to 25 boats in our weekend club races (open class) then we had a OD nationals at our club; who do you think got the best starts ? Yes, the guys that had done tens of open class starts where the line had been crowded.

That my friend is the benefit of open class racing.

And to all who think I'm arguing that OC is better than OD. I'm NOT. I'm just aggitating against the believe that OC is so inferiour that it is practically, well, useless. Far from it. I'm arguing that both are equally valuable. I'm not arguing that H16's should abbandon their OD racing, far from it, I'm (only) arguing that H16 sailors should not isolated themselfs from OC racing.

Wouter

Matt,




I plead guilty to that. My appologies.

Everybody please note that when I wrote Hobie Corp in the posts I was intending to refer to the OD minded sailors and organisations that have expressed dismay or bewilderment at Open class or Formula racing.

In my defense I do express that sometimes it is unclear when somebody is speaking as a private sailor or as an official for a corporation of organisation. I guess in a way this applies to myself as well. Just in case these are all my private views and not ones of the NMBR-system or Formula 16 class.

With regard discussing these topics I think we can disagree with a passion without disrespecting one another. I have volunteered for RC work for Hobie (only) events even when I never owned a Hobie cat in my life and will do so in the future without a doubt. I respect them even when I passionately disagree with them on occassion.

Last point ; I'm not bashing individual persons or organisation per se but rather mindsets and policies. I think we all agree that neither of the last two things have feelings and that both are very much items subject to debate. I accept I played on the person in mr Skidmore's case but then again I'm willing to take no less in return and mr Skidmore expressed an mindset that indeed was the eternal rumour on the beach over the years among devoted OD sailors. At one time somebody has got to call a spade a spade and tell the truth. Of course mr Skidmore expressed a danger about the use of exotic materials that was obviously wrong; he should have researched the matter better.

Wouter

Actually this is a very, very tired old argument that I have personally witnessed for over fifty years, (and it has been going on far longer than that). It is an argument that has never been resolved in the past, won't be resolved now, and will still be argued into the distant future without any valid resolution. It all comes down to "personal" points of view, and no matter how "good" any individual promotes their "side of the coin" there will never be any concensis reached, (I think you knew this all the time Mary, and just posted this to "stir the pot" a little more??, well done you cunning woman you)