How many really don't like one-design racing?

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)

Hi Jake

Your logic is confusing me... You knew you had a problem sailing your 6.0 and could not fix it by yourself ... and you did not have anyone else to learn from. (How is that a critique of open class racing after all it was your first three years of sailing a cat of any kind period?!)

then you write
"within sight of the other boats on the course, a flood of information followed"
So... now you had other people to talk with and copy. ... (how is that critically adressing the merits of one design racing?)

Sounds to me like its drawing on the collective wisdom and experience of the others who were much better racers then the folks that you talked with before.

On the bay, Greg Scace raced a Tornado (sloop) for 10 years in open class and he was the ONLY Tornado.... somehow he managed to aquire the skills to become one of the top racers in the area (one design or open). He was always the scratch boat and usally way out in front so he could not learn by watching others. He got better by sailing and working on putting theory into practice.

Now, He will be the first to tell you how much he learned subsequently doing a tornado campaign.... However, its not that all the boats were the same that was crucial to learning more (they really aren't... each rig is tweaked for the indivdual sailing style of the team) ... In reality he was now learning how to put theory into practice from the best racers in the country and just like you... he learned from people who really understood how to make a boat go. Then he figured out that coaching was critical to improving one's performance and made that step as well. Oh yeah... he increased his time on the water by about 50 fold.

So... was it the fact that the boats are all the same... OR... that he hung out with a better crowd of racers that was the difference in improving his sailing skills?

Sounds a lot like your circumstance... You now hang out with a more accomplished crowd of racers who know a lot more about sailing. Makes sense to me... but it doesn't speak to why this must (or only) occurs in one design fleets. (If you hung out with hobie 16 fleet while sailing your prindle 16 against them you would probably learn just as much in that open fleet)

Now... if you argued that the difference in your regatta performance was enhanced because you needed LOTS of practice in close mark roundings or crowded starts... I would tend to agree with you on the merits. However, in cat racing, I believe that this is a bit overrated as well. ... Its always a giggle to watch college dinghy hot shots jump into the Tornado class for an olympic campaign because they percieve the competition to be lighter. They are convinced that all that college one design experience will be crucial to doing well... It does not seem to work out that way though.

Anyway... I am off in a few weeks to a one design Tornado event... Not because the boats are all the same ... rather... its a chance to learn from the best. Likewise... I learn a lot from racing the I20's in the area... Its not the boats... its the sailors that are the difference and my ability to do on the water... what I understand on the beach.

Take Care
Mark

(ps Miami at the end of January is not a bad deal either)

You guys speak with too many words!

Mark,

OK - your point is a good one. The class of folks that I was racing in the open class were not as experienced or skilled as the group that I race against now. However, if I'm realtively new to sailing and go out racing a 6.0 amongst a Supercat 20, a Prindle 18 and 2 G-cat 5.0s, I'm never going to be able to understand how to extract the full potential from my boat (and theoretically thereafter, sail to the rating) no matter how good these guys are. They wouldn't be able to help me with the nuances of my boat. I have received copious amounts of help and advice from many different very high caliber sailors in our area but until I got on the water with the same equipment that they had, I couldn't see the forest for the trees.

So are you saying that you believe that you can actually learn more by sailing your platform amongst a variety of boats?

Exactly.

Hi Jake

No... I would restate Wouter's point ... see above.

It's all good and fun, each kind of racing is a bit different and the emphasis changes and what you learn changes as well.

Obviously, the closer the boats are in performance and rig types the closer the two kinds of racing get to one another.

My other point is that what people really want is the sense of competition. On the water competition is fantastic and with closely rated boats... you know when its a win... close or loss on time. Competition though tracks with experience and so with small races the trick is to have people racing each other at all levels of the fleet.

(I was sparked by your comments about the questionable rating system though.)

Take Care
Mark

Mary

I like formula racing better than one design because
1. Boat manufactures compete aginst each other so we get better boats.
2. You race boat for boat, first over wins.
3. Big fleets
4. Do not have to buy sails, parts from manufacture (can save money)
5. Can tinker and make parts and sails yourself.
6. Top sailors in formula so you can learn a lot.
7. Sailors can pick the boat they like (manufacture) and race boat for boat.
8. There are weight adjustments to include all sailors.
9. Formula classes are not tied to one manufacture so the manufacture can not control the class, the sailors do

Just a few reasons why I like formula better than one design.

Ahh, the question to you, Jake, is :

Would you have learned the same amount or more during those initial 3 years if you HADN'T sailed against the group with the Supercat 20, a Prindle 18 and 2 G-cat 5.0s ? By sailing only by yourself ?


Sorry to answer your question straught away but I know the answer to that.

Each year one of the most enjoyable things at my club is to get a few of the intermediate sailors to do a few races. These sailors never done a race and pretty soon learned to only reach back and forth. Sometimes they think that after doing that for 2 or 3 years they can sail a catamaran reasonably well.

Than we put them in a handicapped club race and their eyes open up. First race they get completely killed. One time a very **** fellow just finished his first lap when the last of the other boat finished. He was not so **** after that particular experience.

What we do after is sort of very important. We greet these crews when they get back to the beach and help them out of the water and buy them a drink. While enjoying the rush of alcohol 1 or 2 of us sit down and mention we sailed their type of boat in the past and give them a few pointers. Quite frequently 1 or 2 of us offer to jump on board with them the next time and help them.

Halve the time they become more active sailors / racers. The halve seems to get back to what they are were doing before, reaching back and forth, but are from then onward mindful when commenting on their own sailing skills. But I can't imagine that these people came away learning nothing, something must have stuck. Some times they try again when they are ready and them we are ready to pick them up and make some sailors out of them.

Wouter

Yada yada yada yada...

What a bunch of talk when the answer is as simple as "why do we sail catamarans?" We like to go fast! If I wanted to race OD I'd buy a Laser or I14 or some other boat with a large following and hone my sailing skills against a huge number of people...

...but I'd rather sail fast. I started off on a H16 and it was a nice (cheap) boat to learn on but it's such an outdated design. No matter how good a sailor I am- the platform will never be very stiff. No matter how good my skills are- I won't weigh enough to keep the bows up in a good blow. No matter how much training I do- I'll never keep up with a well-sailed I20...

...and that brings me back to why I sail catamarans- I want to go fast! I want a spinnaker or a reacher. I want to push the boat beyond the limits of the old Hobie 16. I want to get the most amount of speed for my money and effort. If I wanted to spend a fortune to go slow-yet-competitive, I'd buy a monohull... or maybe even a Hobie 16

It is really up to the sailor. If you can not muster enough boats of one design, then open class is an alternative. In handicapped racing, you have to wait for the computer to tell you who won. Also, this relys on a rating system to correctly score each boat. IMHO, much more fun to race the same boat, and know the results right away. In our Hobie 17 races, quite often the boats finish less than a boat length apart.

Now to switch to more exciting results, check out the photo's from Melbourne at http://gallery.sailmelbourne.com.au/smgallery/album68?page=4
(my favorites are on page 4)
One Design Racing in action, also check out the close results.

Caleb Tarleton

Jake


That is an oxymoron. Formula classes are development (but limited by the formula). OD is OD.

Wouter


Not true. Hurricane 5.9 is not slow or clunky.



Oh come on Wouter, the Tornado is NOT a OD class, it is a limitee development class, as is the 49er (same hulls but different fittings allowed)


But you are saying the Tornado is an OD cat (near the top of this thread), yet above (point -5-) you say that OD cats are clunky and slow



I like limited development classes, My inter 17 has standard Hulls and mast / running rigging (the expensive bits), but then I have changed a few things to make it more user friendly and easier to sail fast (cheap bits), but we do not have “inter 17 racing” at my club, we have SCHRS handicap racing where we have 5 boats on 107 (2 I17’s and 3 Shadows) and then a number of boats on 101 (Hurricane, F18’s etc). It works for us.

Limited development / Formula classes are the way to go IMO, but please don’t call them One design, they are NOT one design, the Dart 18/15 / Hobie 16 is one design. F16/F18/F20 and Tornado are a formula classes.

This is a NON OD post!

I dont like one design racing. I would say NON of us do. We all have diferent views. Diferent views, diferent boats! get it? diferent, not OD?!

I think most of my opinions about this have been expressed in one way or another by others, but let me add my $0.02.

Briefly (I hope!), I think the source of your perplexity lies in two assumptions that appear to be implied by your comments:
(i) there is only one relevant, or perhaps only one dominant, source of enjoyment for people who race their boats, i.e. the pleasure of competition that compares nothing other than on-the-water sailor performance within a predefined set of parameters.
(ii) strict OD sailing is the only truly ligitimate way to compare sailor performance.

Taking the second point first, many would argue that for most practical purposes, strict OD is really an abstraction that exists relatively rarely (as in the case of factory supplied boats for a particular event), and that in practice the performance differences between different designs within a formula restriction are quite small enough to enable sailor performance to be compared equally well as in many nominally OD fleets, while also having benefits in cost and availability arising from competition between multiple manufacturers.

I think this is a credible argument - it is at least consistent with the growth of Formula racing, but it does itself involve an assumption that may be difficult to prove conclusively. On the other hand, I think there are flaws in the other (first) assumption that are rather more significant...

I don't think anyone who chooses not to race OD would deny that there is any enjoyment to be had in OD racing. It's just that it's not the whole story. There are at least four other sources of enjoyment that I can think of, and any of these could potentially lead someone away from sailing in a particular OD class or towards sailing in an OC fleet:

(i) the pleasure of a sailing a particular design. This includes preferences associated with differing performance, equipment and required sailing skills, for example.
(ii) the pleasure of being able to modify their boat in the way that (a) suits them and (b) they think will produce the best performance on the water. While it may mean nothing to you personally, for many people this is a major component of why they enjoy competing.
(iii) the pleasure of sailing in a bigger fleet than can be provided by OD racing within a reasonable distance.
(iv) the pleasure of sailing against people they consider to provide the best competition available.

Of course the situation is complicated further by the fact that there are likely to be different costs associated with some of these factors. But in any event, I don't think anyone should find it surprising (much less worth criticising) that different people consider each of these factors to be of different importance in their personal choices of how they spend they recreational time.

Not everyone is the same. That's ok. Isn't it?

Mark.

Ok, I take it back - Robi would deny it :-)

Sorry Scooby,

The Tornado and 49er are OD but they are not SMOD. Your Inter 17 is however SMOD.

There are varying types of OD from strict SMOD where you can only buy approved fittings and sails to SMOD where you have freedom of sailmaker, fittings and placement of, to boats such as the Tornado which can be built by multiple manufactures or even home built, but must fall within the build tolerances.

The Tornado whilst not SMOD, it is almost exclusivley made by Marstrom at present and is considered more OD than most other classes including Hobie due to Marstroms cosistancy of build. The Marstrom is also setting the benchmark for quality of build and performance.

Mary,

This strikes me as do you like Lasagna or do you like Steak? I wouldn't want to settle on either as my only food for the rest of my life.

I love OD racing, like my Lightning. I love Manufacturer OD racing like my Hobie 16 and more recently my Mystere 4.3. I love Portsmouth Racing with big starts and lots of traffic playing with all my friends at once. I love Formula Racing because it gives me the freedom to be a "hot rod" as David (davidn) stated. I love PHRF racing. I enjoy my catamarans. I like my lightning. I enjoy sailing my friends keelboats.

With each type of racing, handicap or OD, and with each type of boat, I get to learn. I learned different lessons at different times. I was lucky in that when I started sailing (Portsmouth on a Hobie 16) I had a number of very good sailors who really helped me along. I sailed Portsmouth with my fleet and Manufacturer OD when I traveled. Sailing a Mystere 4.3 and a Nacra 6.0 and a Bimare have made me a better Hobie 16 sailor than if I had only sailed my Hobie 16. Each boat made me work on different skills. Each kind of fleet I raced in taught me different things.

So, why does it have to be OD or handicap? Why are these two options so often considered as competing opposites rather than complementary formats both of which can be embraced by the sailors and regatta organizers at the same time?

Mary,

I am with you 100%. While open class racing has its place, and I applaud all the efforts that go into collecting and calculating the Portsmouth numbers, I can’t understand why someone would want to sail under a number then boat for boat, if given the choice. (if that is what you are asking)
Yes, we would rather match race one other boat of same design then sail against a hodgepodge of 20 boats. We did it for almost a year on the H20 against Wick Smith. It was a true test of the skipper and crew’s abilities. We were equally skilled and equaled determined to out sail each other. When we hit the beach, we knew who had come out on top that day. We didn’t need to compute some numbers to tell us the outcome.

I don’t mean to stray from the subject, but I do sail in the F18 class, the class is in essence a form of the one-design concept. While the boats are of different manufacturer and may not be identical in everyway, they are where it matters and they share the same number.

While the F18 concept was conceived from elapsed time sailing, they could see that this was not fair racing and thus set out to create a better system. A single rating.
I think the aim of the creation of the F18 rule sums it up; "to provide fair racing for crews of various weights, from 115 to over 150 kgs, through the use of two different sail sizes of jibs and spinnakers, linked to the use of limited corrector weights ;" (I’ll note that this is just one of the reasons)

Tracie

Just to say I understand what you are saying :

Point 5 adn 6 are of course a little over the top. I know that. The base of these points is that I personally, more enjoy being part of a modern class that allows modest development and freedom to tinker about than strickt OD classes.

The other points come down to any ones personal definition of SMOD, OD , formula and Open class. In the main body of my point I tried to use the definition that I think most sailor give to these markers. My own prefered (and different) definitions are :

SMOD : Single manufacturer One desig class - You may only use factory supplied/sold part and nothing else, you may not modify anything to the boat beyond the setup as it came from the factory

OD : One design. Strict specs are give on a number of important parts (hulls, mast etc) forcing very strong similarity while the parts themselfs may be made by any supplier or builders. A good part of the setup is left unspecified and can be modified and changed to sailors wished (sheet system etc). This rather closely resembles are very strickt formula setup.

Formula : A defined box rule forces several important specs to a size that strongly limits realistic performance. All within this box rule goes.

Open Class : Completely free in designing, building and modifying a catamaran. Racing is either first in wins or handicapped.

Wouter

Wait...wait..wait. I think my points are getting mingled with everyone else's.

- I much prefer OD (including formula) racing to handicap racing as I imagine most people do.
- I prefer handicap racing to not racing at all (by a LARGE margin).
- I think you can clearly learn more about tactics and the finer points of sail trim and boat handling sailing in a OD fleet than a handicap fleet.

I'm not saying all handicap fleets are crap and should be banned! Handicap fleets are vital to our sport and I'll continue to compete in them but whenever possible, I'll try to stick with OD (SMOD or MMOD).

Warning: This is going to be a long post.

Since I'm the one who started this thread, I guess I should clarify what I consider to be one-design. And for the purpose of my analysis, I am assuming that all of the crews are of equal sailing ability.

To me, the truest form of one-design is that which makes the combination of boat and crew as closely equal as possible to all the other combination boat/crews, while all using the same platform design. The best way to accomplish this is with multiple manufacturers for the basic boat and with sailors allowed to purchase sails, running rigging and standing rigging from whatever manufacturer they wish. The ability to have sails custom built (flat, medium or full) for the crew weight is the number one most important factor in achieving equality on the race course. The Tornado is the best catamaran example of a perfect one-design, but many monohulls fall into this category.

Next best is single-manufacturer one-design for the basic boat, but that allows you to purchase sails, running rigging, and standing rigging from whatever manufacturer you wish. Again, sails are the great equalizer. Even with (or sometimes especially with) a single manufacturer, there can be considerable differences in boat weights. The only way to compensate for these variations (in addition to crew weight variations) is with the sails.

Third best is single-manufacturer one-design where ALL the components of the boat, including sails, must be purchased from the manufacturer and must be identical. This is not true one-design, in my opinion, because it takes the crew out of the equation. Only the boats and their “engines” are all (theoretically) equal. However, despite its flaws, SMOD seems to be very effective as far as getting one-design racing fleets going. E.g., Hobie in yesteryear and Vanguard at present.

Fourth best is formula racing, and it obviously is working very well. It has helped to revitalize the sailing industry a bit because it gets more manufacturers and designers and sailmakers involved.
However, formula racing has a couple of problems:
One is that most formulas have maximums and minimums, and a bunch of different boats can fit into that formula. For example, the Hobie Wave is an A-Class cat, so I presume that I could sail in an A-Class Regatta if I wanted to. And both the Hobie 16 and the Tornado were originally designed to fit within the old ISAF B-Class, which no longer exists. Both of these cases sound ridiculous, of course, but if all the boats that fit into a certain formula class would show up to race, it would be a very eclectic bunch. Sure, the slower boats probably would not win, and would probably hold up the racing timewise, but they would at least have a venue where they could race boat-for-boat just for fun if they wanted to. It may not be the spirit and intent of the formula class, but it is certainly something that can happen unless they close up the “box” formula.

Another problem with formula is that some designer is always coming up with a newer and faster platform. If the people who buy it dominate the class, either everybody else in the class dumps their boat and buys the new one, or the class dies. (It’s a lot cheaper to buy a new sail, as in a one-design class, than to buy a whole new boat.) When a Formula 20 class was just trying to get off the ground in Europe at least 10 years ago, it immediately died because Morrelli & Melvin came out with the Ventilo. I cant’t remember whether it was Pete or Gino who told me they felt bad about having destroyed the class because their boat was so much faster than all the others in that class. Everybody else just gave up. If everybody in a formula class decides to get the same brand of boat, then you are back to pure one-design. So it is almost like a formula class is just a sort of survival-of-the-fittest contest, leading back to one-design. (Maybe that has not happened in Europe, and that is where the Formula 18 has succeeded very well. But it certainly COULD happen.)

Fifth best is handicap racing, which is a completely different kind of racing. The best that I can say for it is that at least it gets a bunch of boats together going around the same course at the same time, which is more fun than going around a course by yourself and then doing it again to try to improve on the time, which is what record-seekers like Steve Fossett do. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to sail as fast as you can and having fun doing it. It eliminates tactics, but at least you still have strategy. And if you really work at shaving minutes and then seconds off your time around the race course, you WILL improve your skills. But for most sailors, I don’t think a ticking clock is as good a motivator or pumps up your adrenalin as much as another sailor right on your hip trying to pass you or the guy 30 feet below and ahead of you whom you might be able to beat if he is going to the wrong end of the finish line.

I disagree

A One Design is where there are VERY TIGHT tolerances on the build, for example a Nth of mm here and there so you end up with a boat built in the USA being as-near-as-damn-it the same as one built in the UK.

The Tornado is a Box rule with additional controls such as 5mm+/- on some hull measurement (allowing mutiple builds). For example there are differing rudder profiles, how can that be "one design". If the Tornado class rules stated (and I have not read them) that :

• The hull must be this shape exactly +- small manufacturing tolerances
• The front beam must be in position X
• the back beam must be in position Y
• The rudder profile must be this
• The centre board profile must be this
• the plates must be made of wood and laminated with glass / carbon
• the sails must be this shape and made from these 'cloths'
• the mast tip mass must be this
• etc, I am sure you get the idea
  

then the Tornado would be a one design as the hull shapes would be the same, the sail shapes would be the same and the plate shapes would be the same

One design sailing is banded around as the solution everything. It is not (the Dart 18 is disappearing as it has been replaced by a Formula rule that allows freedom - F18).

The laser is about as close to a one design as you can get, but then this becomes a SMOD by definition. I do not actually beleive there are any non SMOD OD's around anymore.

you also state that my inter 17 is a SMOD, well it was when I picked it up from Nacra. I have now made changes to the deck layout etc but it is still an inter 17 as the hulls/plates/sails etc are the same. If I was to enter Performance week I would have to take some of this off the boat and make it less easy to sail. It still rates the same as an Inter 17 under SCHRS as I have only moved or replaced fittings with better ones etc.

My point is that a One design should be an "out of the box" boat. you buy one, you rig it, you tune it and then is goes as fast as every one elses, BUT, because there are some compromises that have been made in either the design or build, it may not be as light as it could be (only an example). If you buy the boat, change loads of fittings, buy your mainsail from Austrialia (because they make fast ones there for example), buy your jib from Sweden becasue these are fast for your weight and buy your kite from the states, is this one Design ? No, the sails are designed differently.

It is (box or otherwise) controled boat and so is a development class.

Taking this a little further.

I buy a Marstrom T and sail it for a while and decide I would like more volume up front (a La Reg White boats of old). I approach Reg, buy the drawings/plugs etc and build a new Tornado. My hunch is correct that a Tornado will be faster with more volume and I clean up totally for the next year, winning the nationals, Euro's and worlds. Now we are just starting a new olly's cycle and so every one wants a Scooby Tornado and Marstrom is now only supplying Carbon Masts etc. So you could buy a Marstrom Tornado, or you could buy a Scooby Tornado - is the tornado a one design class ?

I don't think so, it is a controled development class.

I'm sick at home so I have way to much time on hand to play to irritating know-it on catsailor. After so many hours in bad you get a little grumpy and soooo tired of just lying in bed.

So here is another Gem !





I understand that this is a definition of OD but I also think that regarding the world from that perspective may be deceptive.

The definition is a typical example of where the answer is already defined in the question.

I think the thing we are looking for is the class of boats that makes the combination of boat and crew as closely equal as possible to all the other combination boat/crews. PERIOD

By adding the condition that IT MUST ACHIEVED by using identical platforms is soley itended to exclude a different approach to the problem.

We all know people are not one-design. Mark introduced this point yet again. If you are faced with a group of sailors ranging from 120 kg ot 170 kg than no OD class that currently exists approaches the level of equality that can be had in a formula setup. Simply because a platform will either favour light, medium of heavy crews. In a OD class as you defined it one sailor is noticeably better of then others. In a formula class however ; the platform itself can be modified, just as the sails, to compensate for the NOT OD-ness of the crews. Examples like open 18 ft skiffs versus 49-ers show the same trend.

And yes when taking two crews of say 150 kg weight than two different formula boats WILL be less equal than one single boat as OD BUT when realizing that crews in a class can range from 125 kg to 175 kg we can easily see how two different formula boats over a full range of crew can be more equal then in single ID platform that favours one particular weight over all others.

So the questions is do we what large fleets of equal racing or just OD classes that favour a narrow band of crews and say to all other crews that need to suck it up ?

What is fair ? How do we defined equality ? How do we defined competitive racing ? As two boat being exactly the same when sailing by identical crews or when two different crews (but with same skill) sailing two designs optimized for them are equal in the end result ?





That is a pretty cold assesment of the Formula classes. Only one step from Open class racing. I think you will find that Formula racing is alot higher on the ladder. At least about SMOD when taking into account that we don't all measure in right at the optimal weight for that particular OD class. I MUCH rather sail at 15 kg overweight (or underweight) in the F18 class than the Hobie 16 class.

Than of course we are overlooking the setup of the various classes. Spinnaker equipped classes tend to be alot less sensitive to crew weights than non-spi classes. All this talk of OD being better is so one-sided. Significant factors are simply ignored in favour of some "perfect world" formulations. I dare say that F18 racing is alot more equal than most OD sailors think and it appears to be alot more equal than mind experiments do suggest.





How is that a problem ? All races have a cut of time. Everybody must finish 15 minutes after the first finisher or be scored (last finisher + 1 ) points. All boats still on the course can than abandon the race and group back for the next start. It is also alot more fair to unlucky sailors caught in a hole as they don't get a very large hit by being very last.

Fair racing is all about a crew not being able to buy or design an unfair advantage over others. When someone decides he is happy to put himself at an unfair DISadvantage than that doesn't translated in UNfair racing does it. He choose to do so nobody forced him and when he gets tired of it can again choose and back up to equality.

So what is the problem here ? It is just an invented problem to smack the Formula classes with.





Is that so ? We hear this all the time. How often did it exactly happen ? And more importantly how did such a thing impact on the class as whole. Even here the record is mixed. F20 / ventillo => class died, A-cat / Flyer => class grew.

Who are we kidding here. Is the problem that every few years racers need to buy new boats ? Is that it ? Name me one OD class where the true racers DON'T buy a new boat every two years. So what is different ? In case with formula classes, pretty much all improvements in sails and boards can be retro fitted to older designs. New sail design ? Get that oen for you old boat as well. To expensive ? You really think that your 3 year old sails are competitive even in classes like H16 ?

Sure it can happen that the design comes out with a faster boat but how likely is this really AND how do you know that the impact on the class is not a positive one.

Has anybody ever thought about the fact that F18 class grows because alot of still competitive boats are available on the second hand market at decent prices. Allow more people to get into to game at their budget. Happened in the A-cat class when all the top sailors moved to the Flyer. Therefor is it such a occurance really always a bad thing ?





One can have argue that with succes, however than one also has to argue that OD classes are only in an eternal survival contest always leading back to extinction. At least the formula classes are always garanteed to survive in one form or another. The may go OD like the Tornado has done and then at a later time diversify again like the 18ft skiffs did after a period of OD. All the time keeping a finger on the wrist of the sailors and adapting to the times and going with the flow.

As a system the Formula setup is actually quite a smart setup.

Wouter

Mary,

I suggest that your argument regarding onedesign racing isn't the true issue here.

It has been my experience in the last 10 years that the 'new' people to cat racing are older, with family &c, and are purchasing used boats best fitting their various wants, with racing being less than at the top of the list. Include me in that... I have a 22 year old NACRA 18sq, for Chrissake.

I'd certainly not want to tell these people they can't come and play so I'll live with Portsmouth. Once we get these people absolutely hooked on racing, then we can worry about everyone getting some flavor of similar boat.

And even then, it would depend on the boat - I'd certainly not want to go back to sailing an H16 even if that was the only thing going. Ick. I guess I, and apparently lots of other people, aren't purists.

sea ya
tami
ps. Do the 'leaner' guys complain about PHRF like we complain about Portsmouth?

It's even worse! They have several different handicap systems they can use. I'm helping our local club develop a 'golf' handicap system (their terminology - not mine) where the skipper and boat have a handicap based on their performance amonst the fleet. This will only work at the club level.

Oh yeah, they sure do. I grew up sailing on leaners and I crew regularly on a Melges 24, and PHRF sucked then as much then as it does now. The best and worst thing about PHRF is the numbers are set regionaly which creates all kinds of problems. Makes for some interesting gossip and email threads though.

Monohull sailors and multihull sailors IMHO are the same people with the same interests, it's just the platform we do it on is a little different. And yes, they have the same OD vs. PHRF (open) debate that we do.

"will work at the club level", are you sure that's how you wanted to phrase it :-)

Virtually all the open regattas that I have attended give 5 or more boats of the same class separate scoring. So then if you would rather race open or class (one design or formula) becomes a non issue. I have never heard any of the sailors that made up a class complain about racing against each other rather than being a part of the open fleet. For my outlook, if there is one boat in my class that is who I race against and the finish within the open fleet is not that important. Open racing does give you a lot more time on the water that wouldn't happen if you just do class racing.

Gordon Isco

For many years I sailed at a club that used a "back calculated " handicap system to ascertain, What they considered was the best way to judge the "best sailor" in a very mixed fleet (fleets of various cats as well as multiple mono hulls). They used this system over the duration of the racing season as well as for regattas of four or more races.
The way it worked was that the first race was sailed and from the finishing times of all boats their "handicap" for the next race was calculated on the basis of the times needed individually for all the boats to have finished equal first (on handicap). This "handicap was then applied for the second race and the resulting positions counted for the overall regatta (the first race was used as the starting point and didn't count in the overall results). Similarly the same "back calculated" handicap system would then be applied for the resulting times of the second race ie their handicaps were adjusted as if they would all have finished "equal" at the finish (on handicap) and their "new" handicap would then be applied to the third race. This "handicapping would continue for the duration of the regatta/ season.
Very accurate and fair comparisons between different boats, sailors, and sailing skills were obtained from this system and it is the only system that I have seen where there was never any argument between competitors about the final results being "unfairly" influenced by, conditions, quality of respective boats, difference in speed and/or performance of boat, weights, etc.
It was a system that automatically took into account ALL the variations between different boats, speed, weights etc, and put every one on "a level playing field". At times different sailors tried to "rort" the system by "sand bagging" for one or more races to greatly improve their handicap, but in so doing they may have been able to win ONE race as a result but with their results from their "sand bagged" race/s and the considerable resulting handicap penalty resuling from their erraticly improved "winning" race, they always suffered appropriately. The best way to sail under this system was to always sail "to your best" for the first race , and then try to sail every following race with improvement ie sailing up to and better than your previous race's handicap (ie consistency). The calculations necesarry to incorporate this system were simple and the results were always available within approx' 30 minutes after the final boat crossed the finish line.
It is a system that proved itself over a long period of time and required no measuring, no boat formulations, no class yardsticks etc, all a sailor had to do was to turn up with their boat and they knew that for any regatta or series at that club, they could race on an equal footing with ANY other class of boat and sailor. It just worked to perfection for fleet numbers from as little as 12 boats up to regattas with numbers into the hundreds. OD, one off's or even for a "bath tub" with sails made no difference, the system worked and worked well.
This is the primary system used to calculate the "yardstick" for different classes of boats, the difference at this club was that they used it as an ongoing "living" handicap system that was continuously "updated" and didn't stagnate (like a yardstick can) for the entire season/s and unlike a yardstick, would not loose it relevence to the average sailors actually competing week in week out.

This sounds interesting. So even if you had a fleet of one-design boats in the series or the regatta, are you saying that they also raced on this handicap system rather than boat for boat? I have always thought that some type of performance handicapping might be the answer to keeping sailors from getting discouraged in local fleets that are always dominated by the same people.

Guess I shouldn't have clicked on the open forum. Spent most of the night(dial up!)reading, and trying to grasp all the hot racer opinions being bandied about on this thread. I think it was educational, but now I think I must have just bought a crummy obsolete boat. Tami, or was it Tamy, says "ick" when refering to it . Well I think I'll avoid the races and just continue to have fun zipping around on my '83 Hobie 16. I say zip cause the other two boats in my life were a Comet and a twelve ton 35'double ended wooden gaff rigged cutter .

As I was reading this post I was wondering, is there some sort of reversed handicap used by anyone? By this I mean that the extra time added to each sailor because of handicap is given at the beginning of the race, and not the end.

Say theres a regatta thats X distance long, between an H16, a Tornado, and a Blade F16. The distance is caulculated before the race and instead of everyone starting at the same time, the H16 starts first. Then the Blade f16 start as soon as its horn is sounded when Y time has passed, then the Tornado after Z time has passed. That way you could have a first-to-finish race between these 3 said boats.

Im not very experieced here, sailed alot on a laser so didnt have the problems described here, but I think this might work to some extent. The main problem would be the hassle of finding all the numbers before the race, and you loose the pre-race battles between boats which I find to be very important.

Thats completely correct Mary. If there was a "fleet" of 8 Hobie 16's (or 18's or 14's for that matter) starting in an overall fleet of 80 boats of various size and performances, the Hobies would race equally with all the other "classes" with their regatta results calculated using the "back calculated" handicap system together with everyone else, thereby featuring in the overal positions, BUT as they were of OD they could also have their own class race within the regatta as their class result would be "over the line first".
At this club many classes of cats conducted their state heats there during the course of the clubs normal racing just so they could get their state championship results and still compete in a mixed regatta as well, so of like two for the price of one.

some clubs here us the "different starting time" for different boats based on their yardstick or handicap. but it is only used once a year as a novelty/fun race as the rsults that are obtained are anything but realistic. There have been times in such races where a small 10' dingy has started first due to its rather "slow" rating and yet it has still finished before the faster Tornado (starting time based on its yardstick/handicap) has even started.
That sort of "delay" starts in yacht racing never seems to work.

Hey scooby,

The tolerances allowed in the Tornado class are to allow for amature builders, other manufatures and varience between boats off different age. Even SMOD are never EXACTLY the same and I am sure they have tolerances too as it is not possible to make evey boat exactly the same.

I helped the ITA measurer set up and test measure before Athens and you will be suprised with how fine these tolerances are when you measure the boats.

Here is some interesting reading for you from the ITA web site. It explains some of the differences and advantages of one-design over one manufacture.

The Tornado was designed in the autumn of 1967 by Rodney March from England, with help from Terry Pierce, and Reg White, specifically for the purpose of being the new Olympic Catamaran, which was to be selected by the IYRU in an Olympic Catamaran Trials. The boat was developed mainly in Brightlingsea, England.

International Status was granted to the Tornado as a result of its outright winning of the IYRU Trials held in England. The next step, adding the Catamaran event to the Olympic program, occurred two years later, with the result that the first Catamaran event, sailed in 1976 in Canada, was sailed in the Tornado. The Tornado is an outstanding example of a class that was designed specifically for Olympic competition that has become a successful International class on its own merits.

The Tornado has since remained unchallenged as the ultimate one-design catamaran. With its modern, stylish rigging and sleek lines the Tornado is quick to catch the eye of any water-drawn on-looker as it speeds across harbors, lakes, and oceans in over 30 countries around the world. With its ability to reach speeds of 15-18 knots upwind and downwind, and 33+ knots reaching, the Tornado is truly the purists' speed machine.

CREW WEIGHT
The one-design (as opposed to one-manufacturer) Class Rules have allowed the Tornado Class to insure close racing from sailing like-designs, but with the ability to alter the shape of the sails within the approved sailplan to control power. This has allowed teams to be competitive regardless of weight combination or stature, an important feature of the Tornado that has survived the years and the change to the new rig.

The problem often associated with one-manufacturer classes, where in addition to the boats the sails are also strictly controlled, is that a standard weight/height combination dominates. With the ability to alter the sail shape within the Tornado sailplan has resulted in a class where minimum crew weight is not necessary; in the final results in a Tornado event, it is common to have teams whose total weight varies by 40 kg to appear in the top 10.

MATERIALS
Another advantage of the one-design concept with multiple manufactures is the freedom to allow competitors to build such things as rudders and boards, and to do their own rigging. This insures increased strength and extended competitive life of components as modern materials become available at lower cost. An example of this; from a one-manufacturer class rudder replacement can become costly if the materials chosen by the manufacturer years ago cannot be upgraded. Over the years, the Tornado class rules have changed to allow for material improvements in many of the details, especially sails, to take advantage of improvements.

Rigging also has high replacement cost. If a manufacturer chooses lower-grade materials to keep the "new purchase price" low in order to be competitive in the retail market place, it is the active competitor who pays extra by having to constantly replace the lower-grade components. A fine example of this is the traveler on modern catamarans; on the Tornado, modern technology has lead to a dramatic decrease in replacement costs, as parts can be mixed from a variety of sources.

LIFE EXPECTANCY
The natural technological evolution of materials, plus the push for the sailors for stronger boats at the same weights, has allowed the Tornado Class to increase its competitive life dramatically since the late ‘80’s. While having a reputation as fragile and short-lived back in the 70's, the modern Tornados have racing lives of 7-10 years. Many of the world's Tornado sailors, who actively race in other catamarans, know well that the modern production boats have top-level racing lives of 1-3 years.

One of the major causes for the low resale value of the one-manufacturer boats is that they are often supplied at major events. This saves the competitor no money, since they have to have the boats to qualify to get to the top events. These supplied boats, which are then sold cheaply by the manufacturer after the event, actually hurt the most active racers by lowering the resale values of their won boats.

The rules of the Tornado class have also resulted in sails that have long racing lives, the result of the competition among sailmakers for quality and durability. One-manufacturer sails, on the other hand, are mass produced at the cheapest price that the manufacturer is willing to gamble with, from materials that are not the quality of open classes. The result again is that the racing competitor pays more, buying more sails to stay on top.

CLASS RULES
The Tornado Class Rules have evolved and been developed over many years and now ensure strict attention to all details relating to the performance of the boat. Rules are modified as needed and wanted by the sailors themselves, to allow the Tornado to advance with modern technology yet always considering the long-term effectiveness of the changes.

The Olympic status of the Tornado has brought some of the finest sailors from all over the world to the class. With over 22 nations regularly attending the annual World and Continental championships, and with the medals won at the Olympics going to sailors from all the continents where the boat is active, the Tornado has a world-wide level of racing matched only by a very small handfull of other classes.

The Class Rules allow the boats to progress with technology and let modern materials such as carbon fiber, nomex, epoxy resins, and high-grade aluminum to be used as they fall in price and can be incorporated into the boat, resulting in constantly improving quality. This helps resale values and enables the Tornado to maintain its marque as the ultimate speed machine; to this day, closing in on 40 years after it birth, the Tornado is still the fastest one-design production boat in the world.

For the immediate future, the class is concerned with ways to bring in more modern, lighter materials while maintaining the one-design nature of the boat, and done in such a way that the purchase price of a new boat can be contained.

The Tornado: in its first Olympics, it was the fastest and most spectacular of the Olympic classes. Now, after the turn of the century, it is still that boat, the fastest, most exciting,most spectacular of the Olympic boats.

Stephen,
Thanks for the great explanation of what pure one-design, controlled by a class association, is all about.

Mary, So glad that you complemented Stephen from a serious racing sailor's perspective. As a rookie, I learned more about racing classes from his explanation of the success of the Tornado than all the other posts combined. I am also sold on the need to find a crew and a Tornado so I can shoot for that 30 knot reach. ralph on the Hudson

Like every promoter the T class lied about 33 knots speed of the tornado.

The fastest time ON A REACH that was every recorded on a Tornado either during speed trails in England OR the Bacardi Blast at Bermuda (1997 world championship fun race on a rest day) was a striking 23,48 knots !. All measurements were taken over a 500 yard or 500 mtr distance.

If you want you can see some MPEG footage of the event here : http://www.acay.com.au/~gonzo/tornado.mpeg

Here the commentator clearly inform us that the German crew won this fun event by taking 12.53 second to cover the distance at average speed of 27 LANDmiles/hour (otherwise he would have said knots).

I'm sure those 33 knots (38 landmiles/hour) claim of the Tornado is just a typo that has now been repeated for ohhh 8 years now. You would expect that someone would take the time to correct this error.

Don't believe much of what promotors say and research the matter. Often the claims a very easily disproved.

By very careful when any class assures that their beach catamarans reaches past 25 knot or speeds up beyond 25 knots on ANY course. With the extensive use of GPS units we now know that beach cats don't perform past 20 knots in a consistant way. Meaning under their own power. Maybe in a few very special cases you surf of a large wave right at the best time and hits 15 - 30 knots for 1 or 2 seconds but that is it.


Also all classes are extremely handy in building up their own superiority by double speak. Example : Tornado stays competitive as a platform for 6 a 7 years, of course (they say), all other stay that only some 3 years. This naturally leads to the "fact" that tornado's are cheaper to race, right ? Wrong ! The same tornado costs as good as TWICE as much to buy new than a good portion of all others. So in fact the end result may be that the two classes over a period of 6 years are about as expensive.

And so on and so on.

There are only two classes that I know off that don't venture into these shady area's and give it too you raw and exact.

The rest well, lets just say that they have or feel a need to play themselfs up beyond realistic proportions.

Wouter

wouter,
gps instantanious speed readings are not as accurate as you would think. And I don't think that a 500m average distance has anything to do with the instantanious speeds that the boats can achieve. So the truth is probably somewhere between 33knots and 25 knots.

If you _really_ want to measure instantanious speed then you need a radar gun. We bought one for our regatta and anyone wishing to test their speed is welcome.
Sandbanks Open Aug 6-7 2005. Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada. 1 hour drive west of CORK - Kingston.
http://www.westlakesailingclub.com

Pitchy,


>>gps instantanious speed readings are not as accurate as you would think.

I didn't use instantanious GPS speed readings.


>>And I don't think that a 500m average distance has anything to do with the instantanious speeds that the boats can achieve.

-1- you think or do you know ?
-2- If I say that may cat attained 50 knots speed on a reach, what do you read into that ? Instantanious speed or sustained speed ?
-3- A series of instantanious speed will lead to higher 500 mtr. speeds. It is also the official speed measuring way.
-4- Bacaradi run used a stretch of 500 feet, taking a Tornado 12.53 seconds to cover. When does a measurement become instantanious speed ?


>>So the truth is probably somewhere between 33knots and 25 knots.


What is truth ? Please define truth in this respect.

What ever your answer to the above question, the claims made suggest something that ISN'T true, namely sustained speeds above 23 knots for more than 13 seconds.


>>If you _really_ want to measure instantanious speed then you need a radar gun.

I don't agree GPS units can be dependable. Set the unit to poll every sec or so and read out the track. Plot the travelled distance per read-out look for a segment that shows only very small swings in travelled distance over a few samples and calculated the average speed from that. Errors in GPS read-out show themselfs as large swings in travelled distance from sample to sample. Engineers and educated persons will recognize this as the statistical defined DEVIATION. Look for a data series with a small deviation component.

Besides who said that a radar gun is accurate ? I know how that works and it you point that thing at the mast and it swings forward you get the same offsets as GPS unit can have.


>>We bought one for our regatta and anyone wishing to test their speed is welcome.

Sounds like a good test. I'll be glad to hear the results.



Wouter

It is hard for me to fathom a T over 28 kn in 40kn of wind.
The highest speed I have known the Tornado to go was at CORK '75.
A 40kn storm hit, when the the fleet got to the reaching leg.
The peak of the storm must have hit, when the leaders got to
the jibe mark. At this mark a couple boats broke their side stays,
one of them was Reg White who released the other stays, so as not
to damage the boat from the mast.
Notary was there on "Salt Water Wine", Zutec on "Twister" & Smyth.
Anyway a Canadian destroyer radared the fleet at 28kn average.
That's 33mph average, at that speed the boat was no longer in
the water it went like a skipping stone from crest to crest 9'(3m).
It was amazing the Tornado could skip the crest, and soar over the trough.
It was sheer madness, with some poet license here, it seemed like
we zoomed over 5 crests in ten seconds, and the wind would
calm down to 2 or 3 crests in 10 seconds a la bucking bronco,
and then accelerate again.
I will never forget the thrill, not to mention wondering will
the wind ever slow up. I recall a Tornado to windward of us,
and counting it cartwheeling/rotating about it's mast 3 1/2 times, and
the crew later righted the boat, unassisted?
Anyway, I would call it somewhere between sailing/flying & holy ____.
Great wind & waves,
Chris

Hi Mary:

I think your thoughts are the same of most people that really enjoy developing their skills. There's no better way than to see your skills against someone else on the same boat. Indeed, even Rick and yourself recommended in your catamaran sailing book that you experiment starts, etc. with an identical boat to make sure you are maximized. Not only that it's better, I think it's more fun because it limits all the variables. KISS.

Wyatt

Wouter

Look Wouty or whatever your name is. We are trying to have an intelligent discussion here without getting worked up about it. So why do you always have too much to say?

Chris,

My Dad has told me this same story many times...he sailed that day (Geoff Dobbs) and also recalls a young crew (son of Reg?) getting hypothermia from the very cold water being stirred up from 10 feet below.

Must have been a day to remember...

Mike.

That sounds like what happened to Rick White (not Reg). Rick was sailing with his son Todd, who was about 12 years old, around that time. But Rick says he did not go to CORK that year and that Todd's hypothermia happened at the Tornado Worlds in Toronto. So maybe it is a different incident.

Hi Wouter,

This 23.48 knot record was an average speed over the course which was the first and as far as I know, the only Bacardi Speed blast nearly 8 years ago.

I will try and find some info about other speed runs involving Ts and what the fastest recorded time is.

However this was an average speed at one event.... The Tornado class makes claims of 33+ knots. It in know way mentions this is an average over a set course. I have seen and been on Ts during big reaches in as much as 36 knot average winds with gusts of upto 42 (recorded). However we never had a GPS on board and nobody was timing us or any others. Just because you or I have not seen it recorded, mean we can call BS. Some of the runs I have seen and done may well be no where near the quickest runs ever achieved on a cat. However despite not measuring our speed or others...... It was F*%$ing quick and would not doupt it was close to 30 knots peak.

Before calling BS, you should find out who made the claims, where it was and how it was measured.

Also the Tornado is well known for its londlivety, with an International Life span of 7 to 10 years where as most other OD production boats are 1 to 3.

That is why they are 50 % to nearly twice the price of simular beach cats. The class sailors, whome are some of the best in the world, have demanded stronger, stiffer boats and were willing to pay more for it. With Marstroms success in producing a superiour product to other manufactures have see the Tornado class develop into nearly a SMOD.

For any other maufacture to set up and produce a product equal to or superiour to Marstrom would be a huge capital outlay and not worth it. I believe Reg White who's product domiated the Tornado class before the rise of the Marstrom, has recently built a few new Ts for some French sailors with no major sucsess.

I think the longlivety of the Marstom combined with the excellent resale value of the boats, the T does not deserve the reputation of being an expensive class to own. The initial outlay may be a bit more but over time should work out equal or even better than many other classes. Compare a 10 year old Marstrom T to a X class of the same vintage or the amount of X class boats you turn over to stay copetitive and see which class is more expensive.

For example of prices, in Austalia I can purchase an F-18 for around $27,000 to $29,000. A Tornado I can land here for around $45,000. The F-18 however is not a Tornado and we don't realy have any other 20 beach cats here in Oz to compare to.

Hallo Stephen,

As you must have noticed I did not disagree with the truth full parts of you post, like were you claim that the Marstrom Tornado has a competitive life of abou 6 to 7 years. We are often in agreement.

The parts were our post differ is in what that means.

So there is not point in fighting over points that we actually agree on.


>>Before calling BS, you should find out who made the claims, where it was and how it was measured.


Well,

Over the years the typical reply to information and proof has always been :

"However we never had a GPS on board and nobody was timing us or any others. ... However despite not measuring our speed or others...... It was F*%$ing quick and would not doupt it was close to 30 knots peak."

So it felt fast but was it also fast.

I will give you a great example of why actually measuring this stuff means something.

I do class 5 landyachting, as you know, driving that baby over the beach feels like flying at 150 miles an hour, it really does. However it only goes 55 miles an hour (48 knots). It sure FEELS like more but it really isn't.

No I can got around and tell everybody that 150 miles an hour is much closer to the truth and than blast somebody who has done a little more speed measuring as being a fool for not having the data that proofs my FEELINGS as being correct. And we all know of course that absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence, Right ? I'm also a true millionair, have the most beautiful women of the world next to me and beat Schumacher on the track. But then again, I never check my bank balance, compare my wife to other women in the world or pay attention to where Schumy finished relative to me. Surely this means that I spoke the truth and nothing but the truth right ?

So , with all due respect the pointy end of the matter is that we simply do not have any dependable data that proof the claims of 33 knots and over on any course, some data we do have suggests significantly less data on other boats as good as proofs it is less, and now we must believe that that is all crap because you felt like going much faster. What ever happened to the time-honoured tradition of proof.

I'm trully at a loss here. I mean will you go up to a Tornado class measurer and start an argument when he wants to weight you boat before an official race because he doesn't trust your feel of the boat last time you had lifted it ? I mean what is this guy on about, last time you lifted the boat it sure FELT like alot more heavy than class minimum weight !

All I'm saying is that official claims and statements without clear proof should not be made. I both deceives the unaware novice and degrades the class about which the statements are made. It is also bad for our reputation in general, as cat sailors. So why do it ? Isn't 23.48 knots good enough ? Must we take some artistic license to make our top speeds look better ? Does such a thing change the thrill of sailing fast ? And please note I give every class a hard time on these aspects, monos, landyachts and other catamarans classes.

There is one thing that strikes me though. F18 class never makes statements like these and I say they should be recommended for that especially when noting that they can many big statements and still be truthful.

I will tell you a very sobering story from myself and other like Jake Kohl and I think Dave Lennard (if I have this name right). We sail respectively Taipan F16, Nacra F18 and a US I-20 (last = the kind that beats Tornado's on elapsed time). We all brought GPS units along on various occasions an NO ONE of us every recorded dependable top speeds above 25 knots and average speeds (over 500 mtr minimum) above 20 knots. Most often they are in the range of 22 and 18. The similarity between these different designs is striking. And yes we all have data on a particular good day when we felt that we were doing 30 knots at least each time it turned out to be, well, around 20 knots. You should do some measuring like this yourself.

Because only then you have any ground to come back and write :

"Before calling BS, you should find out who made the claims, where it was and how it was measured."

Again, with all due respect to both you and the the truth,

Wouter

All this talk about speed records reminded me of a site that keeps official records...

http://www.sailspeedrecords.com/500.html

World speed records 500 mtr course

Current outright record holder: 46.82kts

Finian Maynard, BVI Windsurfer 46.82kts Nov 2004, Saintes Maries

Howdy Wouter,

The point I am trying to make is that the statement "Like every promoter the T class lied about 33 knot" is a very big statement to make. No where in the Tornado class statement did it mention sustained over X distance.

In the right conditions it is not unreasonable to believe that a T or other HP cats could not average 25 + on its best ever run with short bursts of up to 30 +.

Both you and I don't know who made this claim or how it was calculated / measured.... So until the claim is investigated, I believe it to be wrong to call BS. You can however take it with a grain of salt.

This is probably not a verified speed run but more somebody’s calculation used for promotional purposes. Because the WSSRC was not their to verify it, does not mean it did not happen.

Just for the record, I am sceptical of any claims of 30 knots sustained, be it a T or Skiff but would not argue that a short burst in the right conditions 33 + is impossible.

Sometimes anecdotes become legends and then become "history" and are treated as facts. Maybe the following anecdote about the late George Alleman, had something to do with the 33-knot claim.



And so a legend is born? Actually, if there was that much wind, I can't imagine a powerboat being able to go that fast.

Hello Stephen,

Of course we are mostly engaged in some friendly fencing.

And yes indeed I made a rather big counter statement.

Of course the underlying thought is that a claim is made were no is proof is provided for. With respect to wether it is reasonably or not, well the real data we do posses among us all (of other boats and T's) suggests that it may well not be reasonable at all. But I accept that that is a matter of (personal) intepretation.

I for one say that when than when the Bacardi run only showed 23.48 knots in 1997 and a Canadian radar gave 28 knots that a speed increase of no less than 18-38 % on top of these extremes is a bit of a stretch of the imagination. But like I said THAT is only my personal intepretation, or rather extrapolation, of the data that we do have.


You say that nowhere in the T class statement does it specify that sustained speeds are discussed. Well that is true, But doesn't the wording and feel of the article suggest just a little bit that they ARE talking about sustained speeds.

When I say that I can run at a 50 miles an hour don't you immediately and instinctively intepretate this as me of doing that on a typicall track or road instead of inside a Railway carrage doing 45 miles an hour to which I add my 5 miles and hour ?

That is the issue I'm high lighting here. I mean take a look at the actuall quote




It doesn't really say anywhere that the Tornado is actually SAILING as well.

Hell, it can catch the eye of on-lookers while it is still on the trailer. Speeding across harbour and lakes while crossing a bridge and crossing oceans inside a container on a 500 ft supercarrier cruising at 25-30 knots ?

I mean if we go your way than all these things qualify as well.

Besides that ain't nothing, My Prindle 16 once crossed the 30 km stretch of the ijssel lake in 40 knot winds with foam and water splashing high up on either side while travelling at 120 km/h. Of course it was during a storm and the boat was on the trailer while I drove over the connecting dyke that is only 20 mtr wide.





Alright although I still think it to be funny that you look at it from that perspective.

Besides F16's reach at 40 knots, so T's are really too slow to waste this many words on.

(or would you call that BS ? I mean you haven't investigated this claim yet or know how this number was obtained)






I respect your personal view point

Have fun sailing Stephen and think of me a little during your summer !

It is cold and dark overhere. Season must start again soon

Wouter

Based upon several of the responses to my original question, I am rephrasing the question:

Let's say you already have your boat of choice (or necessity). If, miraculously, a lot of other people also acquire that same class of boat, would you prefer to race your boat one-design with your own kind, or would you still prefer to race on handicap against a mixed fleet?

Hi Mary,

Personaly I'd prefer to race class racing.

For me, racing the Tornado at club level in a mixed fleet is a bit disapointing as you are out in front with no body pushing you (except for the other couple of Ts). Racing against slower boats you learn how to pass them quickley and are rarely challenged (You also learn how to dodge the downwind ) In class fleet racing it is allot harder to pass a competitor and you also have to defend you own possition.

The couple of Tornado regattas we do per season, I learn 10 times as much than all the club races and sail training over the season.

If you have the oportunity for example to race in a large class fleet (OD, Formula or Development class)say every weekend..... Why would you want to give that up and race mixed.

Hi Wouter,

Looks like we pretty much agree but are just looking at it from different angles..... Looks like we realy took the thread off track once again

Down under it may as well be cold and dark also... Sold the T about 6 weeks ago and just before the Nationals and Sail Melbourne. The guys are racing without us . Gotta take the right money when it comes up.

This weekend my crew and I will talk more about our next boat which will be either a Marstrom or F-18 (Capricorn or Tiger). Would like to get both a T and F-18. Will have to have a chat with the sponnsors

AAhh, well F18, hard choice there.

Go for the best build Boat or the one that has the best racing locally ?

F18 sure got the last part down. How many at last AUS nationals ? 33 Boats and crews ?

And Tornado hot shots making regular cameo's in the F18 class.

Good luck with your choice.

Woutre

Hi Steven

In reading your post it seems to me that what you are looking for is " being pushed" its the challenge of passing a well sailed boat so that you can get better.
Your assumption is that this naturally occurs in a one design (Tornado) fleet.

I disagree and offer two points.

Obviously, sailing the scratch boat in an open fleet means that you better be out front... (not so much fun) What if you sailed an F18 against a mediocre fleet of T sailors..... I bet the challenge is now there.... Your ability to sail the F18 to its number and compete against the T's boat for boat who are not sailing as well will put a lot of the challenge back into the game.

My point is that What people want is competition and goals which are achievable. This is what keeps them coming back for more.

Another example...is it competitive to have a fleet of one or two Olympic level sailors and the rest ... weekend warriors. Of course not. Simply saying ...well it's one design and so its great... would be meaningless.... You would still be way out in front and not being pushed. You essentially match race Bundock and Forbes. You could do that at your convenience... why go to a regatta and then have to wait for the slow boats in the fleet to finish.

What you want to see are finishing positions in constant flux at all levels of the fleet. ... If the results in a one design fleet are easily predicted... its not a competitive fleet and people will find something else to do. (No matter how identical or tunable the boats are.)

Back in the day of 150 boat Hobie 16 regattas...you got exactly this.... three fleets (A, B and C) of sailors racing against their peers (experience and skill) and the game was competitive and fun.

To answer Mary's question.... Would I prefer to sail in a one design fleet. NO...... Would I prefer to sail in a competitive one design fleet ... Certainly! Would I leave a few of my friends who race I20's to race Waves in an open class... NO... Let them race against the T's unless its the nationals.

The question facing all weekend regattas is how do you optimize competition... (NOT the BOATS). Strategies are one design, Formulae, rating bands in handicap... eg spins, Handicap, or Personal handicaps. You also need to make sure that some sailors aren't left behind by your splits... Better to throw a P19MX into a 10 boat Hobie 20 fleet then have the P19MX in an open fleet with very few similar boats and just score the event twice Open and Hobie 20). If you don't keep every one in the game they won't bother to play for long!

Good luck finding a Marstrom ... the Capricorn looks like a nice design as well. You don't see many of the Olympic guys really cross training on other boats... (odd nationals... certainly but not really campaigning a non Tornado) How do you see it?

Take Care
Mark
Off to sail my T in the league of ordinary sailors fleet at the OCR at the end of the month

Hi Mark,

You brought up some very good points. I believe mixing classes that have a simular rating is as good as racing OD. Also increase the size of the fleet on the course giving sailors big fleet experience at a local level. This will surely improve their performace when the treck of to the major regattas.

But as I think all would agree, there is no subsitute to large COMPETITIVE OD fleet racing if you can find it regularly.

Regarding cross training in other boats.... In OZ there is a bigger fleet of F-18s than T's and more competition. Not saying there is no T competition here. The top 5 or 6 boats are very competitive with Bundy and new crew Aaron Worrell sill very hard to beat.

For the best training it would be smart to race F-18s and pull the T out for the Tornado and the Olympic Class events. If you can afford both, do this and after the local T events ship your T to Europe.

MARY, Why not sail both!! If there are enough boats "of one design" nominated at a regatta, then those boats only have to have their positions "across the line" recorded to have had their OD class results, and if they have an appropriate "yardstick/rating" then they are positioned relative to ALL other boats sailing the same course and the same start. Or if a "back calculated" handicap system is incorporated, then similarly their individual relative positions in relation to the rest of the fleet is also known. Not only do they know how they perform against the sailors within their own "class", but they can also see how they are stacking up against the best sailors in other classes as well, which always helps to truly assess just how well they are REALLY sailing. The argument that to have "other classes" on the course at the same time "hinders" the "one design" classes sailing is a bit of a "furfee" as ALL obstacles on the water average out the same for all competitors over the duration of a race, and beside which any obstacle on the course should be treated as a test of the individuals sailing skills as to how he/she handles it.

Darryl, you must be a politician.

Different classes starting together is not really relevant to the question, because this is done routinely at most regattas. And, also, with the new starting procedures, you often do not know what class(es) will be starting together (or whether your class will be started alone) for any given race until the class flags go up on the committee boat.

With this in mind, if all things are equal, if all the sailors are equal sailing ability, and if you have a choice of racing one-design in a fleet of 10 boats or racing in an open-class fleet of 10 boats, which would most people choose?

If you are looking to be a popular organization, you will want to be inclusive to all boats and sailors. If Hobie points start to mean something again, then they should have their own opportunities to race unhindered by other boats. I don't see the big deal in having an open class start separate in any race, HCA or otherwise.

I question the validity of the traditional bouy course when a site has a vast expanse of water. I also question the newer starting procedures handed down a few years ago from HCA. Both seem silly to me.

The new starting procedures are not from the Hobie Class Association -- they are from the International Sailing Federation and US Sailing.

Honestly I would race in an open fleet of 10 spi equipped sloop rigged boats than in a fleet of 10 optimists or 10 Dart 18's. The last two type of boats don't give me enough enjoyment to put in the effort of dragging the baot over and rigging it. Besides I'm to heavy and too big for both anyway so all I do is come in at the back anyway. I don't particulary enough chastizing myself in that way. Than I rather be blasting along under spi.


Wouter

And I must say the new sequences are not a major improvement. For example, this weekend at the NAMSA NAs/Tradewinds we will probably have about 6 starts.., and that is after combining like classes.
With the new starting format, it would take 35 minutes to get the races off.
By using the old method (which we are going to do, as usual) with 3 minute sequences, we will get the entire group off in 18 minutes.., almost half the time.

There are some merits to the new system, i.e., if your class is all finished and now are awaiting others to finish, the RC can get you off and running.
But, that is only if the wind has not switched, there are no boats about to finish during the sequence, etc., etc.

Both have their merits.
Rick

Let me try yet again with this question. I keep trying to find ways to eliminate the ifs, ands and buts, and get to the basic preference, all things being equal.

Let's say you have a spinnaker-rigged boat, and there is a fleet of 10 of the very same boats. There is also a fleet of 10 open-class boats, also spinnaker-rigged but not identical boats. ALL of the sailors in both of these fleets are of equal sailing ability. You have a choice of racing in the one-design fleet or the open fleet, and the two fleets will be starting separately.

Which fleet will most people choose -- one-design or open-class?

I don't know how to get any more specific.

Mary,
I think you may have finally pinned them down. I enjoyed reading all the non-responses to your revised question. I certainly understood it as did most people. My guess is that most didn't want to state the obvious; its more fun to race boat for boat than against a time factor (handicap). I'm for one design as you presented it.

CRAC does what was mentioned in an earlier post; we sail handicap, but if you can get 5 boats to show up, you can be scored BOTH as one design and handicap. That sometimes brings up a question in the middle of a race; do I sail defensively to beat the other guy on the one-design, or keep going for the overall? Not a problem, just an added (an interesting) choice to make on the water.

David
H20

As you put it, I prefer one-design. No measurements, no handicap, just get out and race. Our club has 6 Stiletto 27's we just race head up first over wins. We'll discuss sails beforehand to see what we'll run and go with that. Keeps it simple.

Clayton
S27

what it all boils down to if we keep this this post and response up is the eventual core question


"Would you rather live in a perfect world than the real world ?"

Now I'm sure everybody will say yes to that relative undetailed question. (is your perfect world the same as mine ?)However I don't think anyone in the history of mankind has ever had this particular choice. So what is the point in answering such a question ?

With respect to your question :




I think I will choose the open fleet if that is were all my friends are sailing and is counted in my championship. At my club we have a club chmapionship and open class races away from the club count when more than 5 club members race there. So lets take Round Texel 2005 I will sail against the 10 or clubmembers there rather than 10 boats sailed by people I don not know or am not involved with in some form of championship. And yes this in not a mind example but a real situation I'm personally in for 2005.

You see Mary, The question is never that simple.

Maybe you should try this approach.

"Do you prefer to sail in any OD fleet over sailing in the open class when participating in the latter involves being slowly tortured to death by angry OD racers without any chance of escape ?"

Maybe you then get the 100 % score you are looking for.

Cos right now you are forcing people to at last once choose OD racing over open class racing. Why seek this ? What does it mean once you have exlcuded enough if's and but's so that there is no alternative answer possible then "I prefer OD in this case ?


Wouter

Wouter,

My mom always said if you don't have anything nice to say... well, just don't say it.

Clayton

Gosh, Wouter, I designed that question specifically for you.

Your not "having a go at Wouter" are you MARY???
You must always remember that he has a fairly large "barrow to push" with his total involvement with the F16's and as such his overall general view of sailing may (I only said MAY Wouter, so please don't "Flame" me for my personal opinion) be some what "colored", and Mary in regards to your question(s) that form the crux of this thread, I have found it difficult to actually comprehend the significance of the question. I can only put this down to the apparent large differences that exist between the way that "club" racing is conducted in Australia and the USA. From the last few posts here it would seem that there a some major differences, not only in the organization between Australia and the US, but also there appears to be a big difference in who actually has the authority to determine how the "running of events” is conducted. I could be wrong in that assumption, but that is how I see it at this juncture.
Darryl J Barrett

You are absolutely right and no I don't mind at all that you say that actually. I have also a large investment in open class racing with my NMBR project (That I must add is now OUR project as I'm getting significant help from others)

But there is nothing secret or fony about it.

Because Why did I choose F16 our F18 ? Arguably F18 is the only class left in the Netherlands that has any claim at the throne ? F20 come second and than way in the back on a shared 3rd spot A-cat, H16, Dart 18 and Tornado.

So I could have chosen a large competitive OD alike fleet with good reason but I didn't. So something in my enjoyment of sailing and my situation steers me away from these classes.

Now you can remove all if's and buts from any question but the core why I decided against all these classes will remain and I will decide open class with my F16 over all else.

For me , and I say for ME !, it is the flexibility of the design (solo and doublehanded) with spinnaker, a truly modern rig (wingmast) and being allowed to tinker with the boat. These 4 things exclude ALL available OD classes and also the F18 and F20. The fact that F16 rubs shoulders with F18 in open class (were 80 % of our Dutch racing is done) was a big part of the decision as well.

This is no secret and I will not hide it. So I may actually be one of the sailors that has placed personal enjoyment over the thrills of strict OD racing. Because I know that I never will be truly competitive anyway. Too old, started to late in life and live in an area where racing level is Darn high. So who am I kidding with getting involved in OD sailing ? A few youngsters of 23 who have sailed cats since they were 12 will beat me always.

On top of that I don't have a regular crew anymore. People in my age group start families and move on to other priorities. Without a dedicated crew there isn't much fun in strict OD racing. Might as well enjoy tinkering and sailing a modern design, a design on the edge and enjoy that. That and hang out with friend that over time have bought other designs and race recreationally just like me. Beat one of them in an open class as he beat me last time, just to return the favour and claim back bragging rights on the beach. This year the whole club will be attacking our club champion as they have been champions for 3 years in a row now. This is now a sacret mission of all of us. Now I have hte boat for it but no I need to find and train up a bloody crew or do it singlehandedly (A bit much with a spi again a team that got that F20 with spi down from start to finish)


Wouter

Well mary, shall I cross over first then ? (I'm out of time you see)

In basis you have got a point and you always had. I enjoy OD racing as much as other types of racing, but don't ask me to prefer one of the other as I really don't know what to choose. It is like getting up in the morning and deciding what to wear. Today it is white tomorrow it is black. There never is one right shirt for all days and it is the same with cat racing. I enjoy OD for what it is and I enjoy Open class racing for what IT is. Both have advantages and drawback and it often comes down to the day or the particular personal situation which form suits a person best. And often that person will switch over a few time during his or her life. I may haow did you go on sailing waves ? When you started there wasn't a fleet of 10 boats yet ! And yet for some reason you decided that the wave was attractive to you, to be prefered by you over say H16 or A-cat. Some try to think away that element that makes us all individuals in favour of forcing us in the perfect world of another human being.

So end with the statement (not a question anymore)

"If my perfect world then same as yours ?"

"Or can/should I demand everybody sails F16's because THAT would suit me best ?"

"Or should we just have multiple perfect worlds life side by side ?"


Wouter

Hi Darryl

Two examples that will illustrate the issue. TBCS ran their hangover regatta Jan 1/ 05 . 26 or so boats. 10 boats with Spins in the same start and run the same course. They score 2 fleets of 5 spin boats??? They do not calculate overall 1 through 10 on handicap.

This weekend at the Upcoming Tradewinds regatta. Rick White announced he will have 6 starts for 50 boats??? Probably: two for the spin boats.
With 10 F18's and 10 20's and the one F16 will be tossed in with the a different fleet.

To me this is one start and race called the spin class scored on handicap and two one design divisions(F18's and I20's). A 21 boat race seems a lot more interesting to me then a 10 boat one design start....
One result is certainly that the F16 doesn't have much incentive to travel any great distance to race the other non spin boats.

What would happen down under?

Take Care
Mark

Either way there's not much incentive for the F16 to come down if they're concerned about racing in a big fleet. What do they have to look forward too when they're tossed in as the single oddball within two fiercely contested one design fleets? If it were me I would rather be in the group that has accepted the fact that they are racing in open. While I still conceed that scoring both one design and open together is interesting, I'm not interested in racing within it. Call me a purist (or something worse ).

OK, enough beating around the bush.

Of course we all enjoy sailing and we don't have to race to enjoy it.
Most of us don't expect to win or even trophy, but we show up and race.
This is not about enjoying whatever sailing our situation allows to participate in.
It is about competitive racing.

As in any competition, the goal is to win.
Anyone who says they don't want to win is LYING.
Most of us want an HONORABLE victory.
That means competing under FAIR conditions and winning through our skill and intelligence.
The sport of organized competitive sailing, ISAF RRS, emphasizes this in Rule 2, FAIR SAILING.

The various handicap systems have tried to create "FAIR SAILING" amongst all boats.
The concept itself is faulty and ALL of the systems have plenty of problems.
Even with everyone "playing fair", different boat designs have advantages and/or disadvantages under different conditions.
Some boats handle rough water better, some like light air.

The Formula system tries to assure "FAIR SAILING" in an even-up situation, while allowing experimentation.
The A Class and F18 have shown that even with boats that are identical, within the Texel measurements, advantages exist.

The best way to prove your sailing skill and have an honorable victory, is single manufacturer one-design.
And, as we previously discussed, the comaraderie is great.
None of that "you need to buy a boat like mine" salesmanship.

Formula racing is the next best.

Open Class, with small sloops against bigger spi boats, is barely better than nothing.
At least the big boats get back to shore quicker and have plenty of hot water and cold beer.

Winning on an underrated boat is B.S.
Winning on a boat because of ideal conditions for that particular boat is B.S.
Winning because the conditions, wind & water, changed during the race and benefitted a boat is B.S.
Chasing faster boats around for a "moral victory" is B.S.
To prefer an Open fleet over an equal size One-Design Class Fleet is B.S.

I believe that Mary was asking the question for an ideal situation.
To say that "The real world is different", is not the point.
This is about how we wish it was.

So I pose the question:
Do you want an opportunity for an honorable victory or do you prefer B.S.?

Mark,
Look more closely at the TBCS Hangover results. What you will see is 39 boats of 22 different designs, in four "classes" with 3 starts. The “spin fleet” was 11 boats…I20, F18, and a Tornado. They seemed happy when the 5th boat of each fleet registered late to allow separate 18 and 20 foot classes. The Portsmouth results calculated as a single spin fleet are given below.

What you may not have noticed is that there were 3 other spin boats in Open classes (a Taipan 4.9 sloop 2-up, a Mystere 5.0 solo, and a Mystere 4.9 2-up). Dunedin has seen a lot of older boats being fitted with spinnakers. What do you do now with spin boats of DPN 68-78? We have a love/hate relationship with Portsmouth. Thank God for Sailwave software.

1 NI20 Casey, John Novak, Jim 59.2 4:48:17
2 HF18 Lindsay, Jennifer Gray, Kelly 62.5 4:50:34
3 NF18 Ingram, David Ingram, Kathy 62.5 4:52:14
4 Torn Dubuc, Alain L'Abbe, Eve-Marie 59.0 4:53:27
5 NI20 Daniel, Robbie Herendeen, Mark 59.2 4:53:28
6 HF18 Korz, Sue Thomas, Greg 62.5 4:58:08
7 NI20 Roth, Jay Roth, Mike 59.2 5:13:05
8 NI20 Leobold, Tom Cheever, Richard 59.2 5:18:31
9 HF18 Jason, Olli Jason, Kelly 62.5 5:43:58
10 HF18 Keysor, Clark Pastoor, Tina 62.5 5:50:43
11 NI20 Smith, Greg single handed 59.2 6:43:55

At most clubs here they race every Saturday afternoon and for the cats (all cats) they would generally have three starts, one for cats greater than 16' up to 18' in length, one for 18' and over in length and one for cats less than 16' long.
The bigger cats start first, the 16' to less than 18' start second and the less than 16' start third, this tends to keep the different starts separate around the course due to the difference in relative boat speed. As it is regular club racing every sailor has his own club handicap which is corrected after every race that he sails. If any particular class require that they hold their class "state heats" at the club in conjunction with the normal club racing they may be accorded their own start (if their numbers warrant it) for which they are recorded "across the line"
We also have regular regattas sailed at different clubs throughout the entire year, generally on a Sunday (and public holidays and Wednesday night twilight sailing). At these regattas the format is very similar with the exception of the "club handicapping". There are usually the same three break-ups of the different sized cats starting similarly with the fastest boats starting first. but the results are generally calculated using the individual established class yardsticks to ascertain the overall placing’s. Once again there are at times at regattas where a class require that they sail their state championship heat during that regatta, for which they may be afforded their own start (once again number dependant)
Each of these three "divisions" race only within their division for placing honours, and at times, to ensure that no division should be "back on the beach "ages" before the slowest division, the three divisions will all sail the same course but the fastest cat division will sail three or four more "legs" than the slowest while the intermediate (on speed) cats may sail two or three extra legs. This is done to ensure that there is the greatest likelihood that all sailors will be out of the showers and Belly up to the bar" together - good for the camaraderie of the sailors and good for the beer money" for the club. There is the variation to this three division break-up for certain "specific" regattas where the break-ups may be something like -all boats with a yardstick 82 and less form the fastest division, boats with a yardstick between 83 and 89 form division two, and all boats with a yardstick 90 and over form division three
The yacht clubs will listen to the class representatives concerning racing formats, but the final way in which all races and regattas are organised and run are, almost totally in the hands of the clubs and this organization is something which all the classes and individual sailors seem to find more than satisfactory, safe, organised and fun.
After all, here, the clubs supply the launching sites, tractors to put boats on and off the beach, full club facilities, with showers, change rooms, dining rooms, and full bar service, there are experienced club “rescue boats on the water at each and every sailing event, there is an experienced bridge crew in the club tower watching over the entire race course at all times, and there is radio contact between the bridge crew and the rescue boats. With all that sort of investment into “the sport” it is only fair that the clubs have the final say as to how any event will be run. And it works.

Well, I was not trying to make any "point." And I have no personal interest in whether people prefer to sail one-design, or formula, or on handicap.

I was simply curious as to whether people sail in open class by necessity or by choice.

When I posed the question, I was not certain what the responses would be, because if people genuinely wanted to race boat-for-boat, I think we would see more efforts to develop and grow one-design and formula classes. (I realize that is easier said than done.)

In fact, of the catamarans that race in open class, few have active class associations, and even fewer have owner-controlled class associations. To me, that is very strange and shows lack of interest in structure, organization, and growth of the class -- and probably also indicates lack of a feeling of loyalty and commitment to any particular class of boat.

"I was simply curious as to whether people sail in open class by necessity or by choice."
Well, Mary, why didn`t you just say so !!
That`s easy, if you have enough boats to sail OD, or SMOD, then that`s great. If guys are doing more open-class sailing in the US than class racing, it means that the classes are dying out and not being actively supported. I think what you can establish from the 95 posts above is that it`s different everywhere, not only between countries, but regional, and from one yacht club to another, even if they`re on the same pond.

This from David Parker : "Look more closely at the TBCS Hangover results. What you will see is 39 boats of 22 different designs, in four "classes" with 3 starts."

Now if all these sailors "preferred" strict OD sailing to open class, there would be 39/22 = 1.77 boats per OD class. Not much competition, you`d have to concede. So it is out of necessity that we form groups of similar boats, whether it is by size or configuration, together. Having a rating system that evens things out on a theoretical basis helps keep things a little closer.

Regionally, in Cape Town, we have a fleet of approx. 20-25 H16`s at one club, a fleet of 15-20 Mosquito`s at another, and a few Dart 18`s, at the same club as the Mosquito`s. While we race OD most of the time, we welcome the 3 or 4 Darts to sail with the Mozzies, one start, and have positions based on Open class handicap, and by class, even if the Darts don`t make a class by the official definition of the term (this is, after all, club racing, not world champs.) Hell, we even have a 505 or 2 that sail with us, and have no idea on how to handicap them !

So it would appear that we "prefer" OD racing. Not necessarily true. It`s just what we get due to our circumstances. I personally prefer it when we have open class regattas and the 20 Mosquito`s, 25 H16`s, 4 Darts, and 4 or 5 Hobie Tigers come out to play. Results are split out by class and overall handicap positions are calculated.
The social scene is so much better when you have 100 or so sailors in the pub, and long arguments ensue, in the name of fun, as to who has the "better" boat

Sometimes you CAN have your cake and eat it.

Cheers
Steve

Hi Darryl,

We sail a simular fromat but start the other way round.

1st less than 16 foot
2nd 16 to > 18 foot
3rd 18 plus. including 16 foot + spinnaker boats.

We mainly race back to back short course races of about 45 min each. Starting the slower boats of first gives them a start on the faster boat. That way we get the fleet to finish closer together and can get the next race on the way sooner. Another thing it does is eliminate the likleyhood of the fast boats (spinnaker) coming down to the bottom gate near the start as another fleet is starting. Very scary in big breeze going head to head with boats just after a start. Not many gaps

At the larger mixed fleet regatta such as Forster Wild Cat we had a start F-18s (Their National title), followed buy H16 and smaller boats and last.... The rest of the fleet. On our start we had 70+ boats. This is what racing is all about.

The first race off the regatta we pulled a port start on a fairly neutral start and only just cut in front of the A's and other T's. Right was favouring. The second race we lined up again on port and made it quiet obvious. Ashby and Brewin shot down to the pin to teach us a lesson. We ducked them and were forced to slice through the middle of the fleet. Interesting to say the least . Anyway right payed off again and was 2nd to the top.

All this was done at the pin end where Australian Sailing were photographing . Twice was enough and we started the rest of the regatta on starboard.

Mary asks whether all things being equal, if people would rather race one design or Open. As I understand it, open meaning racing on corrected time under Portsmouth, Texel, etc. For myself one design is great in concept. The only problem is there are not any one design multihull classes in the US that I find fun to sail. I am not willing to sail an overweight, poorly built woofer just for the holy grail of One Design. If for instance the Taipan 5.7 Spi had sold in any numbers in the US, I would have happily raced it one design. Nobody bought them because we are all mostly cheap bastards. On the other hand, I don’t like racing on corrected time although I will do it for the Alter Cup qualifiers or for distance racing because there are no alternatives. So where does that leave you if you want a high quality lightweight racing machine on a first to finish wins basis? In New England that means A cats in the summer and DN ice yachts in the winter.

And now I leave you to argue for the rest of the winter as I begin the long drive from Connecticut to Minnesota for the 2005 DN worlds and North Americans. Speaking of Large fleets, initial estimates are 160 DN’s from 17 counties in attendance. How exactly do you say Starboard in Estonian anyway?

Eric Anderson

In past surveys done by various entities, the majority of sailors have expressed a clear preference for one-design racing (I consider this to generally cover single-manufacturer one-design, multiple-manufacturer one-design, and formula).

But there is a spectrum ranging from people like me who do not like open-class racing under any circumstances, to those who do not like one-design racing under any circumstances.

So I phrased my original question the way I did because I wanted to hear from those people at the far end of the spectrum from me and find out whether and why they REALLY do not like one-design racing at all.

A lot of people SAY they prefer open class racing, but when they explain further, it usually turns out that they "prefer" it out of necessity rather than choice, because of the type of boat they have or type of boat they want.

But even then "choice" is involved, because they have chosen a boat (for financial, esthetic, or performance reasons) that does not have a viable class, either locally or nationally, to be able to race one-design.

And on a different level choice is also involved because even if people would actually prefer to race one-design if they could do it with their boat of choice, they are not proactive about growing their class. They just passively accept their fate of having to race on handicap.

By the way, in this thread only one person seemed to REALLY not like one-design racing under any circumstances.

Hi Mary,
Here's the way I see it. Most cat sailors like one design racing. There is another part to it just as important and that is the sailors want the boat to be high performance. The problem is the high performance boats cost more than the low performance boats. The sailing contest in the high performance boat is more challenging, more difficult, more strenuous and the tactics are more complex because of the speed. The cost of the high performance boat drives the number of units sold down and there are several sources for high performance boats which divides the competition even more in the more challenging sailing contest.
At the low end of the performance scale and low cost, we have a dominance in numbers in the H16 class.
So here is the conflict. Large numbers of boats in the low tech low cost class or few numbers of boats in the high tech higher cost classes. What are we going to do? If you want to race the high tech, fast, demanding boats, at this time you race Portsmouth. If you are willing to race low tech, slow boats, sail the dominate beach boat, the H16.
Boat cost is a prime driver in this situation.
Bill

I disagree. The majority of cat sailors aren't interested in any type of racing. They just want the social benefits of the fleet / club. Nothing wrong with that at all. Then there are others that just want to race whatever boat we have at the time be it a Hobie Wave or F18.

All I know is I don't race against a number, I race against other sailors reguardless of the system.

I have started a whole new thread based on what Flounder has just said about non-racing sailors, so please go to that, rather than answering that part of his post here.

As far as what Flounder said about racing against other sailors rather than a number -- if you are racing on handicap, I don't know how you can race against other sailors if they are not racing against you.

Sorry. Can somebody please start a new thread about the virtues of Handicap racing versus boat-for-boat racing?

Sure you can Mary... just sailing across the bay I find myself "racing" against the other boats around me. It is just a feel good thing... you just compare yourself to any other slower boat! I always like to see if I can beat bigger "faster" boats and if they have 4 friends along, all the easier! Of course, that's not real racing.

Mary I think that what has evolved from your question is not primarily what type of "system" sailors prefer to sail under but that first and foremost they just want to sail, and to expand their enjoyment of the sailing experience, they like competing/sailing against other boats/sailors!
What ever the "system" that their competitive sailing is conducted under is really secondary and "when push comes to shove" they will sail under whatever rules/conditions/circumstances apply at the time.
I know that this doesn't directly address the wording of your original query, but personally, I am not sure if there can be a truly "objective" response to it, the responses that have mostly appeared are all in the main, highly "subjective" and as such I am not sure if they will ever accurately give you a definitive answer.

Hi David P

I was using your results to illustrate how the uber one design mindset shapes events like yours. This mindset goes something like this… Those other sailors on those 22 other boat designs at this regatta will see that “NOW WE HAVE ONE DESIGN” They will be impressed… they will want to join us… CAUSE EVERYBODY LOVES ONE DESIGN! (just ask Hobie how well this notion works)

As this thread has laid out… there are many valid reasons WHY this just isn’t working out!

What I think is important to take home from this debate is to note just how bent out of shape over the relationship of “OD racing” to “Just Racing” the USA sailing scene actually is. Compare the USA to the rest of the world at the level of running weekend events! Can you imagine… a fleet of 20 Hobie 16’s… allowing a 5 boat fleet of Darts to start with and race against them in this country for a weekend event….. I can’t (nor can Mary for somewhat different reasons (grin)!. However, it seems like in the EU, Australia and South Africa… This is the NORM!… and not worth any amount of debate….They define this organization of racing as MORE FUN! Yet in the USA… we have a continual debate over this issue.

You noted… “they seemed quite happy when the 5th boat showed up to make for two fleets.” My guess is that two sailors of the 11 were vocal about ……. "WOW… WE GOT ONE DESIGN" and the rest did not give a damn. In fact, the one-design siren song caused your very competitive (as your data show) 11 boat fast spin fleet to split into two! (well if you count a Tornado, I20s, and Single handed I20 a fleet). You did not report the race as Open spin or trophy it that way in keeping with the vocal minority wishes… (Now I wasn’t there but I have a guess as to the sociology) For some reason your experience is not unique … but it does appear to be idiosyncratic to the USA….

So... Two 5 boat fleets seemed better (at least to the most vocal of sailors in the crowd) … only in America.

A reality check for these uber one design folks would be to ask the sailors on the 22 other boat designs if they were impressed by the one design turnout they just witnessed and when they planned to join in…. (Cause EVEYBODY WANTS ONE DESIGN! ) My guess is that hell freezes before this happens.

I understand that TBCS was trying to accommodate the wishes of the sailors who participated. My point is perhaps we would be better off in the long run if your fleet said… I understand what some of you want… This is an open spin race on handicap (fast boats)…. We will award one design trophies in the mail… thanks for coming. This seems to be how the yacht clubs in the rest of the world manage this one design itch of the sailors!

Take Care
Mark

PS... how is your Tornado/P19 Rig working out?
PPS... Is Greg Smith AKA Smitty and still perfectly able to hold an I20 down solo?

Doesn't any one out there feel as I do, that debate about the preference/desire for OD or open racing is somewhat divisive and damaging for the cohesion of catamarans in general?
I remember years back when ALL cats were so few in numbers at any racing venue that the clubs/organisers at regattas would turn any multihulled sailor away because they didn't sail "real" boats. We had an uphill fight for years just to be accepted by the "established" sailing community as being somewhat (almost but not quite) legitimate and therefore PERHAPS entitled to participate in organised racing. During those years all the cats that were finally allowed to compete on the racecourse sailed as "ONE DESIGN" - IE CATAMARANS -. It didn't matter whether you sailed a 13' cat against a 21' cat (and any length in between), you were all sailing as a one-design craft against many designs of mono hulls.
There was this sense of total unity between ALL multi hull sailors. It was them against us, and the bonds that were created between cat sailors during those years have lasted just as strongly right down to the present. No sailor that lived through those early years of cat sailing would ever even try to delineate between the pros and cons of breaking up ANY cat into "elitist", "one class/one design" or another only, at the expense of the "FLEET" of cats as a whole. When strict one design racing reigns supreme (as it very nearly did through the dominance of Hobie in the recent past) it has created a feeling of "power" for the strong (in number) OD classes, and promoted/propagated a sense of "inferiority" towards those who sail cats without major numbers on the water, regardless of the non OD cats performances.
Regardless of whether it offers "better/tighter competition" around the racecourse, it is still doubtful whether it is in the best interests of catamaran sailing and sailors as a whole. To debate OD as opposed to open is as about as legitimate as debating catamarans as opposed to keel boats, or whether oranges are better than apples?

I'll raise my hand. Count me in.

Same story over here cat sailors had to fight for beach rights and respect. They had to join hands with sport fishers and merge into one organisation to get off the ground. Now we are still in the same organisation with them and work together in preserving the rights and permits we have. Now 35 years on, NFB is the best organised sailing organisation in the netherlands with a whole independent race cirquit and an annual race calender of some 50 events (not counting club races and other small races)

Formula 18 class would never have been born if we didn't have open class race oriented mind set over here. All OD classes would have done their best to kill it off in its infancy. Thank god our setup didn't allow that. Now we have one of the most exiting and competitive racing scenes that we can think off. Sailors can go to an 80+ boat event each month and never have to traveller more then 100 miles. And the can race all others no matter what design they bring.

I think we're blessed here.

Wouter

Hi Darryl

I agree with you. FYI.
In the USA back in the day, the numbers were large enough so the cat sailors created their own regattas and paper clubs and largely promoted one design sailing outside of the traditional sailing community. (And the Civil War among us started with respect to WHICH one design) Now the numbers are small and cat sailors are slowly reorganizing their one design clubs and joining yacht clubs and other traditional sailing organizations. Sometimes they join as generic cat sailor... other times they join as a one design fleet.

On the Chesapeake Bay, Cat sailors belong to several geograpically different open cat clubs. We race in a mix of Big Boat Distance Races managed by several yacht clubs under the CBYRA umbrella, We race in small boat regattas hosted by other yacht clubs managed by a different wing of the CBYRA and we host our own events. One of the traditional one design dinghy yacht clubs accepted a small fleet of A class THIS YEAR. For the majority of these events... we are Beach Cats to the host clubs... by and large we split out one design groups on our own.

What happened to our Civil War? .... The passions don't die... it still simmers along and bubbles up with respect to Hobie Policies and this one design dogmatic debate ....

Bottom line... IMO, we are slowly getting to where you are! We do not have a consensus yet as to the best way to revive the sport... Will one design principles save us??? Will a model that works for the rest of the world save us???
100 + emails and counting point to just how contentious the debate is.

Take Care
Mark

Mark, thanks for enlightening us non-Americans as to how the cat-sailing scene in the US evolved. As much as Americans don`t understand how we can co-exist in other countries, we can`t understand how you guys can exist without eachother`s co-operation ! It makes no sense for us to have tiny fleets of separate classes rather than descent sized fleets of mixed boats, just from an organisation point of view. Incidentally, the 4 Darts I mentioned in a previous post have asked for their own start at our club, so it seems OD racing is the preferred option, but sharing a race course is no problem. I think they prefer their own start simply becuase they don`t like us beating them, since we`re faster round a course. They would probably start with us if we were the slower class. No-one wants to be shown that their chosen class of boat is slower than another class, so this is perfectly understandable.

Mary raised a valid question - If OD racing is preferred, why are the guys sailing the one-offs at regattas in open class not doing more to track down other owners of the same class, and coaxing them out onto the race course ? I guess because it`s work & effort to do that.
Some classes such as Hobie have a dealer who`se best interest is to promote OD racing, and does so. This keeps the sailors coming back to events, boosts numbers and sells boats, which is why they put in the effort.
Some classes have an association, who`se committee are passionate about promoting their class for no financial benefit - they realise that it`s in their own best interest to get more boats on the water, as it will increase their own enjoyment to have more competitors.
Other classes don`t have either - unless one of them takes the initiative to do so, their class won`t grow.
Another factor could be that, because boats with strong OD classes will retain higher re-sale values, they tend to be bought by racing minded sailors who are prepared to pay the higher price for a competitive boat. The boats that don`t have strong OD class racing or infrastructure will generally have lower resale values, which attract guys who just want to cruise around and have fun, and are hesitant to race for any number of reasons. We have to look back at ourselves and ask how we got into sailing - most of us probably were just into the sensation of moving along quietly in a gentle breeze, and got into racing much later.
Some of us get into racing, and some never do. Doesn`t make them any less of a sailor though.
So I think many non-racers end up with the boats that have no class racing, and this makes it even harder to get them together to race, since that`s not why they bought the boat. Make any sense ??

I think there are two different types of sailors

The tweakers
and the Non Tweakers

I sailed a Dart 18 for 10 years, followed by a Hurricane for 10 years and then my I17 for the last 4. I bought the Dart 18 becasue at the time it was by far the strongest class in the UK (80's) and was a cheap entry into sailing and because it was a SMOD there was little that changed over time and so running costs were low.

I bought the Hurricane when I left Uni as I wanted a greater challenge and also had plans for a Tornado (and the H59 was the best feeder class in the UK). I was one of the first Hurricane 59 sailors in the country with a kite as I was convinced this was the way to go.

I bought the I17 when my latest crew decided he wanted to do other things and I could not face training up another crew to the level I wanted to compete at.


When I started with the Dart, the simplicity (and thus low cost of ownership) was a big plus and I lived with the fact it was not 100% right/tweekable/ or performed well in all conditions relative to other cats - I was a non tweaker.

The Hurricane 5.9 is/was also a SMOD but still required some tuning / tweaking.

The I17 (in the guise I sail it, ie on handicap) is a more tweaky boat as I have changed things.

As I have got older I have become more of a tweaker/developer of boats.

I enjoyed my time sailing the Dart and Hurricane 5.9 (knowing that all the boats should be the same) but also enjoy sailing my 17 in handicap.

In an ideal world I think most people enjoy both One design class and Handicap racing.

I would love a fleet of 20 I17's at my club (about 200 cats of which only a few actually race) but it is not going to happen so I sail handicap at Grafham (my club)

I also enjoy long distance racing on the 17, which by definition is always handicap.

Rick does not know yet how many starts there will be for the Tradewinds -- won't know until after registration.

As I recall, Rick was using hypothetical numbers just to illustrate the time difference between using the new starting rules and the old starting rules, as far as doing multiple starts. Sorry if the number came across as fact.

With the Seacats in Columbia, SC we have (and I'm guessing) about 30 members. I live about 90 miles away from most of the group so I'm a little out of touch with the day to day activities and details. However, I believe that of those thirty we see about 6 to 8 at two local regattas a year. Only two boats from this club (David M and myself) regularly travel to regattas around the eastern coast. The club has camping / sailing events and used to do a lot of Kayaking and Mountain Biking excursions - there is still some of that but it's gone down some. I think that the 'racers' came to power and those events didn't get the focus that they used to - which brings up an interesting point.

Racers are passionate about their sport and I think they tend to rise to the top of these kinds of organization because of their strong and very dedicated personalities. But I think that that hurts some of these organizations like the Seacats because in reality only a few of the members share the same interest in racing. I could be wrong (again, because I've been pretty out of touch with the group this past year), but I sense that the group is in a bit of a decline in activity.

But then I kind of got off topic again....I'm not sure why we see such a mix of boats on the water even though I'm sure, given a choice, most people would prefer to test their skills in OD racing. It took me four years and four boats to finally get into one design racing so I may be a good case study as to why I ended up open class racing for so long.

Boat A) Late 2000 I decided I wanted to get into sailing after racing one weekend on a friends 21' sport monohull. I remembered the Hobie 16 my father had for a short while when I was a kid and knew I wanted to get into catamarans. I was looking for a Hobie 16 or similar when the same friend with the monohull explained to me that I wanted something with more performance and I agreed. He threw out the brand name 'Nacra' and I eventually found a dirty 'ol Nacra 5.2 two hours away that had been sitting unused for 5 years in a guys backyard. I knew nothing of the local catamaran scene and even less about racing. I ran into a local sailor (Michael Coffman) while cruising Lake Hartwell who also was on a 5.2 who helped introduce me into the scene that I would have found no other way. I eventually was attending about as many recreational events as I was regattas (about 5 and 5 a year). Michael was in college at the time and wasn't attending many regattas so I was sailing in a small open fleet.

Boat B) At this point, recreational sailing was pretty high on my list. My brother lived on Folly Beach in SC and I really liked sailing off the beach. I bought a Hobie 18 from a friend of a friend (same friend with the 21' sport monohull) that was moving from Folly to Peurto Rico. The boat was pretty rough but it was sailable and I left it on the beach and the sails in my brother's appartment with the agreement he would maintain the boat and use it whenever he wanted to as long as I could use it when I came down. I had a motorcycle at the time and planned to cruise down on the bike to spend a weekend sailing (I actually did that only ONCE!). I ended up using the boat only about three or four times a year and the agreement with my brother wasn't going very well. I was hoping he would get hooked on it too but that wasn't working either. The boat was in no condition to race competitively and I ended up selling the boat two years later.

Boat C) I had distance raced some with the 5.2 and I really liked the idea of focusing on that. I had been performing a lot better distance racing than course racing and was consequently enjoying it more. I wanted a bigger boat with spinnaker. Locally everyone was on 18' or shorter boats except for a few Supercats. Class racing entered my mind and I spoke to a few other sailors and they expressed an interest in also getting 6.0s. My naivity allowed me to believe this might happen! Inter20s were being sailed occasionally locally but were expensive and the class also was too intimidating to me. The best of the best were sailing those boats and I felt that was going to be way over my head. The 6.0, and the folks sailing them, appeared to be more of a 'ground level' choice in my opinion at the time and there were classes of 6.0s at the big distance events. So I found a killer deal and bought a 6.0NA and sold the 5.2. I later got pretty frustrated with the 6.0 because my focus was shifting more and more toward course racing. I was still competitive in the distance racing but really struggling around the course but sailing in open class with nobody to really tune with. Nobody else bought 6.0s around me - a couple did buy I20s though .

Boat D) At this point I really wanted to get into a class where I can race OD locally because I felt that this is the only way that I was going to improve significantly (and I was right). David and I had sailed the Tybee 500 and learned volumes and that might have temporarily quenched my thirst for distance racing some too. I was considering what to move too next, I20 or F18. Our local racing scene was seeing 5 or so Tigers at each race. The local I20 racer (Nigel Pitt) was also sailing an F18 at the course races and the I20s with the Seacats in Columbia, SC were rarely traveling. Personally I didn't care for a few features on the Tiger and the whole NAHCA thing was iritating me politically so I was still leaning toward the I20. Then the Nacra F18 became available and I decided that was where I was going because it I liked all the features and the class was all around me. An unfortunate destructive incedent with the 6.0 presented an opportunity and I purchased a brand new F18. I've been tickled to death with the purchase ever since and have learned a ton.
After finally realising several bad tuning habits by comparing with other boats, I've pleasantly found that we've been very competitive on the local scene. On the other hand, I still feel like I'm missing a distance racing component with the F18. My ideal scenario would be to own both an I20 and an F18 but that's not possible at the moment.

Steve,

After reading your post I believe we are more alike than we are different.

I'd also like to make one thing very clear, we (Southeast US) always share the course with all beach cats that show up with the exception of a National or Hobie only events.

More often than not if there are 5 or more boats of the same type they are scored and trophied as a fleet, and I fully support and encourge this, more hardware is almost always more fun. A fleet may not get their own start but they do get there own class. Most don't care if they have to share a start with another fleet/open. Yes some folks do whine about sharing the course with other fleets, but I believe those folks would complain about sharing the course with the back of their own fleet.

As far as I'm concerned Open and OD/Formula do live together nicely. Yes, I'm very passionate about racing OD/Formula and will remain that way for as long as I continue racing.

As a side note for those that say OD/Formula racing is damaging cat sailing in general... well that is just rubish, and many have explained why in this thread.

One more point: I own an F18, and I didn't buy it because I think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, I bought because it is popular and offers straight up racing. So yes, I'm one of those that is more interested in the racing itself than the platform I'm on. Yep, I like racing on leaners too.

Dave

I would say; break open the distance racing scene with the F18's.

You and your F18 buddies must be able to do that. And when you succeed you may end up attracting top sailors from Europe to the TYBEE , Atlantic and other major distances race. These guys travel for their sport and builders/sponsors like to support top crews racing F18's because that is where the sales are. The sales are not in the I-20 on a large scale (meaning world wide) but they are in the F18 class. Also top sailors DO NOT cross train in to the I-20 or F20 classes they do in the F18 class.

As with all things, sometimes you need to be a real unpleasent person and push things through. That is how all changes get effectuated. How do you think F18 ever came to be, by playing nice for ever ? They broke open the cat sailing scene in Europe and pretty much destroyed strict OD racing in their path. Now the same OD zealots of old are all F18 zealots now. Seriously on the beach we now have alot less bickering. If you want to be something you race F18, that is where the action is. No contest between Nacra 5.5 or Hobie 18. The are dead. The only people sailing other types of boats are

The single handed guys ; scene here is trying to decide who becomes dominant and no A-cat is not fully dominant yet.
The really heavy guys : F20
The recreational group : the usual mix of all types of boats and the receivers of all good types of advice of the more experienced racers who ones sailed the same types.

Light weight sailor is a special group right now ; in the past they sailed H16's, Prindle 16's and Dart 18's. For long they had no serious alternative then the F18 class. This is going to be area that will show most growth over the next several years. Hopefully we can get a formula class going for these guys as well. With luck we can also link up with the solo sailors.

And I shall be very blunt about it; I'm going to do all in my power to make sure that F16 becomes the dominant class in both the light doublehanders and singlehanders scenes. I truly think we have a very good shot at it. Nacra and Hobie are only aiming for the A-cat wannabees, but that is only halve of the story. Besides A-cats are to expensive for most if the wannabees anyway. But I shall quit boring you guys here.

To Hobie and nacra officials, rest assured F16 class will continue to welcome the best 17 footers you can design to race first in wins. All in the idle hope that we can join forces in the way it was done in F18 and make this third area outside F18/F20 a major succes as well. It is plain to see that this convergence will be beneficial to both OD sailors are open class sailors as this tri-unity of formula classes will cater for 95 % of the individual wishes any sailor may have while garanteeing level racing in big fleets. Hell F16 can race F18 first in wins as well. If this doesn't beat handicap racing that what will ?

And yes ready to go designs are available for you guys. No need to do your own designing. AHPC, Phill Brander and Stealth marine will happily design a monster performer for you guys. All have indicated that to me in the past.

Am I being arrogant ? Maybe, but I have good reason to. A-cat is not going to do it for you guys. As Glenn Ashby says on that Sailing DVD. If you sail in the A-cat class you better be prepared to try new things continiously and tinker with your boat else you'll be left behind. It is a bad enviroment to offer a stable design (constant in time); simply because the class rules don't favour a stable design as much as Formula class rules do.

But then again as Sam Evans would say, what does a lone Dutch sailor without any major titles know !

Answer is : the market !


But in reply to your post Jake, break open the scene ! F18's can do distances races very; each year Round texel and other races proof this again and again.

Wouter

weezy,
Why do you keep saying "here" and "we" when you are talking about America and Americans?
You are not a member of US Sailing.
You are Dutch.
You live in Holland.
You rarely leave Holland to sail.

Don't you mean "What does a lone dutch sailor with an undergraduate degree in control engineering, who has never worked in the sailing industry, who bought his first catamaran, a leaky Prindle 16, eight years ago, without ANY catamaran titles whatsoever and has been to ONE American race know."

Speaking of f16.
You keep spreading that lie that f16s are for lighter crews than any other class.
The f16 sloop takes EXACTLY the same crew weight as the F18 and the f16 uni takes the same crew weight as the A Class, I-17, FX/1, or Hobie 17.
"do your own designing", what are you talking about?
We know that the very successful Taipan 4.9 was designed EIGHT YEARS before you ever set foot on a catamaran.

P.S.
You have got that "be a real unpleasant person" requirement taken care of.

OK..... play nice chaps

Sam Evans= The usual ranting xenophobic ugly guy very common currently in America.

Not so. Sam is one of a kind.