Sailor’s wishlist survey (Part II)

by Bea Woodget on November 7, 2009 · 0 comments

in Commentary/Opinion,Les Glenans

waypoints

See Part I here: http://slsailing.com/?p=1601

Chapter III: Competitors, what are your expectations?

As we have seen previously (Part I), 96% of sailors who answered this survey request more races, more competition, more sportive events to challenge their skill and the other sailors.

In brief, you are competitors, fighters! Ummm…what about a Pirate”s battle? Ok, just kidding…

Let’s have a look on the full graph, what did you say? :
survey-racingwhat

At this point, let me apologize: the predefined list of answers were not very clear, and maybe confusing. But, thanks to your additionnal comments, here is my understanding of this graph:

  • First, half of you seem to be interested in a Class-Based World Ranking, or whatever the name. Yeah ! Without revealing a big secret, I can say that you could a have good surprise soon… A group of volunteers is already working on something;  I heard about a concept easy to apply on a large scale… but shh…..! Let’s give them a couple of days before they may propose something…. (no more, promised!) :)
  • Cups!… here again you want more. Ok, ok ok… but some caveats appear. As explained in the Part I, events such as the Fizz Cup or J-Classic, mobilize so many sailors, in a condensed period of time (2 or 3 months), with races occuring every week, and sailors practicing a lot between races, that for non-raceing sailors, it looks like the grid is invaded by the corresponding boat, and it certainly contributes to a kind of lassitude. Maybe a solution as suggested, would be to plan such events over a larger period of time, with 1 race per month instead of one per week… It could also allow to program similar events in an alternative way, especially with a wider variety of boats. Only 1/3 ask for more events based on Fizz or J-class, but 43% ask for same kind of events with other boats. Maybe the previous point, a Class Based Ranking could be a solution giving you the opportunity to compete with all boats, in a perpetual manner… By experience, and I think Jane Fosset will concur with me,  Cups are very time consuming for the organizers, and a headache to manage time slots and the fleet in a fair way. Races are less than 10% of the work in the background. But we like that! :)
  • Then comes Team Racing with 34%. I believe there is a misunderstanding with the term here. Reading your comments, I understood that most of you confused the real “Team Racing” form of races (see definition below), with “Racing with a Team or crew”. My own fault. In fact, according to your comments, what you would like is more races in which you can share your pleasure with a crew/mate/friend (no need to go to Zindra for that…). Some “Team Racing” races had been hosted by Tim Warrhol a few months ago, could be a fun way to learn rules…
      • Reminder of “Team Racing” definition (from Wikipedia): As opposed to fleet racing where boats are scored on an individual basis, in team racing teams consisting of 2, 3 or 4 boats compete together. As in fleet racing the low point scoring system is used. A boat is awarded points based on the place it finishes a race. For example a boat that finishes 1st earns 1 point, a boat that finishes 2nd earns 2 points, etc. In team racing the winning team is decided by adding together the places of all the boats in each team. The team with the fewest points win. Team Racing is a very tactical and technical branch of sailboat racing, combining the need for boat speed with good teamwork and communication. Knowledge of rules is a key in Team Racing.
  • Match racing ladder comes at 4th position with 31%. I used the “ladder” term in reference to Hans Zinneman’s great work to promote Match Racing, with a very good tool hosted on his own web site @ http://www.zinnemann.com/ladder.asp . Unfortunately, very few use this facility. Maybe there is something to improve… I don’t know.
  • Only 1/5th of you, voted for Multiclass Regattas. There is a thread about that on .ORG, in order to improve the actual system used at Madaket (Hotlaps startline).

Here are the others comments/suggestions I got on this subject, regarding “Racing”:

    • “More Mentoring for Starting racers”
    • “More regular races with realistic boats like Fizz 3.0 and decent sailors”
    • “fun games involving racing sailboats”
    • “More long distance racing (like J class but not fizz cup)”
    • “Cups spread over a wider time frame to give opportunity to miss or drop races, either because of unavailability or damage due to bad weather conditions….ie very bad sim crossings”
    • “Short cups of small tracks.”
    • “More races at slower speeds and with smaller boats that we can use to pull in the general SL population outside of the power gamers”
    • “larger variety in races, like slalom, maybe even an 24 hour race etc…”
    • “i know cups are a managing nightmare. but i do enjoy them, waching and partisipating. i know it can cause its own issues, but i’d like to see ” big” races advertised in a way non sailors can become aware.”
    • “not quite sure what “team racing” means … I’m pondering an experiment or two to try at Fishers, but those loaves arent even quarter baked yet LOL.”
    • “New kinds of races would be nice, see the following post for more information.
      http://slsailing.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3423 “
    • “I would dearly love to see more events that are more inclusive of all the racers in SL, not just a particular class of boat. Bea no offence please and also none intended to Jane, but the past few months the J-Cup has (and yes maybe just in my perception) taken over a great deal of the racing in SL. For me Saturdays are pretty much a wash, and the racing is limited to roughly 15 sailors that have been chosen for the racing that day. Other events, weekly long ocean races etc have fallen by the wayside or have converted over to J-Cup pre-races. Not this not a criticism of the RDs (most being friends of mine) but just what has happened.”
    • “I would like to see other clubs get more involved in racing etc. NYC seems to be the only club w/ racing everynight”
    • “I would like to see a more variety of races scheduled in the Blake Sea .. It seems there are no Fizz races anymore except for the Far East time zones. I wish there was at least 1 Fizz race per week in the American or European time slots. Maybe the Fizz is not popular any more .. but I practiced to hard .. and all for nothing it seems!”
    • “I want see or join the race. that is more long distance and more bad weather race. Like a Volvo Ocean Race?hehe.”
    • “Is difficult because the time difference, I think even race against the yacht club.”
    • “I’ve thought it might be interesting to have an ongoing, racing competition, where lap times are used to rank participants instead of finishes in specific races. For instance, a unique course could be designed and run weekly at current race events, with the understanding that the lap times would be submitted to the competition. Rankings could be displayed as they are updated, with monthly or bi-monthly awards being presented and times reset. Monthly winners could be pitted against each other in a year-end event to determine an annual winner. The overall thinking is that this would allow for an ongoing competition for everyone, within certain designated classes, using current regularly scheduled events. Awards could be “hardware” as in plaques presented monthly or bi-monthly, or monetary ($L) if a small fee is charged for participation. Race wind and conditions would need to be consistent for all races per class.”
    • “With the handicap issue is it possible to measure all the boats on a measured distance on 3 points of sail in a constant breeze. A beat with wind set at 40 degrees to the bow. a reach at 90 and a run at say 240 degrees. Each boat because of their scripting will sail at some optimum/ultimate speed given that this is a propertying of the particular scripting in any boat (( In reality this could be calculated )). Running over fixed single legs at various points of sail eliminate driver error/ability this is important as it is a boat performance handicap rather than a personal skill based handicap. Head for the line and sail a single leg on a single tack. minimal lag/drag or any skill based influence, well except for mayby sim crossing (( Cant help bad weather on the odd day )). I dont know if the difference in wind generators would be significant in the above scenerio but if it does then maybe as in real life there may need to be multiple measurement systems and builders then have the choice to have their boats rated under the various measurment systems that.”
    • “Class races for 1 design boats AND have Class races by ability or novices and intermediates will never advance; I am with Gemma already offering novice/intermediate racing instruction is well receive but needs support for follow up. Instituted some time trial events which matches sailor, boat, course and wind against each other removing starting issues. A handicap system that automatically scores boats would allow some multi-boat racing.”
    • “Maybe make a more open system of organising the racing without a strict calender. As i am aware of the system is quite strict in the clubs know. (Just people who like to organise something ocassionally in one pool.)”
    • “I learned bunch of things with J-Classic. I hope the number of team racing will be increased more, ’cause it was very fun.”
    • “I’d love to have at least one long race or cruise where I don’t crash out or freeze or become a submarine… Blake is appalling at the moment in particular (October 2009). In general the SL Sailing experience is good but it’s a shame Sims were set out as 256X256 since there are far too many joins to make any journey safe unless Becca Moulliez’s “crash proof” engine is adopted by all boat engine installers IMHO.”
    • “maybe make races with limited rules, so new sailers don’t have to learn all at once and races with full rules. a certain weekly race could be limited rules one week and full rules the next for example”

    • …to be continued …

    Coming next in Part III (last):

    The next section of this paper will detail your responses to the key question “What would you like to see improved?” Many constructive suggestions were provided for these aspects. Stay tuned!

    Related posts

    Tagged as: Blake Sea, Fizz, Fizz Cup News, J-Class, Match Racing, ranking, rules, survey

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