The apocalypse must be near, I actually agree with a Woot post.

Wouter, right on!

Well, I certainly meant no disrespect. My point was, everyone could instantly identify Nigel's boat, they had one of the cleanest graphics setups ever.

When you have tons of sponsors, the impact of any one of them gets diminished in direct (or maybe exponential) proportion to the total number of stickers on the boat (I had one, so I know).

Obviously, this takes a Big Daddy sponsor, and if you lose them, they are harder to replace and can jeopardize the whole team next year...

BTW, wasn't the TB name mentioned like 1000 times in that SI article? I agree, it was sad that they couldn't get a better shot of the sponsor logos in there.

Mike

The logo showed up enough to make our friends at Tommy Bahama very happy - while we weren't allowed to put anything on the hulls, there were logos on the boards and rudders and lifejackets.



Most of that press coverage was attributable to Nigel and Alex having a good relationship with Walter Cooper, who is a very talented and respected photographer.

I'm not sure that wasn't intentional, to not hurt their paid advertisers.
You are right that was a clean looking super tight promo on Nigel and Alex's part. But ,again, to get that kind of visual takes a sponsor that's willing to put that kind of money behind it.
And an awesome team squirrel,I mean manager.
Todd

I like Team Velocity Sailing's graphics.

Why is this a question? Were the organizers planning on scoring them all together?

Having Run the FAST CAT RACE Round the Isle Of Wight (UK) with up to 120 Boats on the SCHR system this has worked well over the years and has become a Standard in the UK and European races. It promotes large fleets with all the interest in sailing against different Cats. The Event will only get bigger with more sponsors looking to get involved.

Hey there!
Don't use successful examples of handicap catamaran races to illustrate a valid point of view.... It upsets the locals! YOU NEED TO DRINK MORE COOL AID.... try to chant One design .. One design... it's the only way! One design... one design... it's the only way!

If there were 10 N20's entered and 2 F-18's then I'd be singing a different tune.

But with both fleets capable of being scored individually, why rely on a number to determine who the best sailor was?

Also, I'm not familiar with the race that Tek Kat is speaking of, but wouldn't "rounding" an island involve racing on potentially more than one point of sail?

Also, another thing... in 2005 the Tybee 500 included open class racing. A M20 and a N6.0 showed up. Thats it. The rest of the boats were N20's.

I fail to see how openning it up completely to handicap racing is going to promote more participation when it hasn't done so in the past.

My memory is good, but it's short. Remember the year the Javelin 2's raced with the I20's? How did they score the Jav's?

They were F18HT's, did they use any corrections at all or just straight time? As I recall, (and I'm sure I don't) the top finishing Jav was about 5th overall, but ahead of many I20's.

Personally, I don't have a dog in this fight but I would think if you have a good turnout of both, score them separately, start them 30 minutes apart, and then you can award top 3 in each fleet, as well as an overall lowest elapsed time boat (first to finsh), and an "Overall Lowest Corrected Time Boat", accounting for the 30 minutes difference in the starts of course.

And if you really have time to kill, then also score it as 1st, 2nd etc. by each day, then tally that all up at the end and hand out even more trophys. Cover all the bases.

But if you put Misha Heemskirk (sorry about the spelling) on an F18, you will have to start him an hour behind everyone every day...and then the I 20 boys will really be pissed.

And they had to sail uphill... in the snow....

Y'all all seem to forget that for quite a few years the Worrell 1000 was 'run what you brung,' no scoring corrections and turnout did just fine.

Isle of Wight is pretty much a square so it looks like you'd get a bit of everything.

http://encarta.msn.com/map_701513402/wight_isle_of.html

Actually, the turnout for the Worrell was better when it went one design

With two one design fleets... Which one is the best sailor? That is the potential problem.

Do you agree that the PR folks want one person who won the race that day. "aka the best sailor"?

Two OD fleets need some resolution of that question if you ask the question. "should the T500 be scored on corrected or one design. (or elapsed)

The whole discussion is irrelevant IF the F18 fleet thinks that they are equal to the N20 in speed IN THIS UNIQUE RACE, . Wouter's suggestion would make the most sense. Race elapsed 1 to 20 and then award OD trophies.

If you think the F18 is slower and you have no chance at line honors and the overall win... You might want a PN race or a volvo/regatta type scoring to level the field.

Remember, In the 18HT fiasco worrel. the PN differences based on around the cans for the 18HT and the N20 was very small. So the 18 footers thought they had a shot at line honors in the new Tybee 500. When the results proved otherwise... people played with the ratings off line to level the field.

If the race is for two one design fleets and you don't need a single winner of the day for the PR value. ... duplicate the big trophy and don't tabulate the elapsed time results or recognize the elapsed time winner with a trophy. Leave it to the public to opine about which team, which boat, which class did the best.

For years the Down the Bay, run north to south with prevailing southerly's... the elapsed time winner would go to a classic Tornado, the scratch boat in the fleet. Was this accomplishment worth a trophy? If he wasn't the first boat to the beach... he had no chance of winning the official race on DPN.

And the racing closer and more consistent (and exciting) with one design. It's a different matter entirely though - if it's run what you brung, that's a different event than what we're talking about today.

First, I'm thankful that the N20 has not been turned away from this event and, as a sailor who hopes to continue to sail the 20 for a while, I hope it continues to be supported in the Tybee 500 for at least a few more years. The 20 has been the reason the Tybee has survived to this point.

I'm really excited that the F18's are finally reaching a critical mass of participation - it just took some of the right people to say the right things to get the motivation working. I'm certain that it will continue to grow from here and hopefully become one of the premier F18 distance racing events in the world making a critical extension in the life of the Tybee500...there's hardly another stretch of coastline in the world as friendly as the eastern coast of Florida and it's a fantastic place for an all-out distance race.

Handicap racing is fine for a local race weekend or perhaps an event that was founded under that premise (like the Texel). However, a race of this magnitude that requires so much dedication including a substantial investment on part of every team should hold itself to a higher standard than handicap racing if it can do so...especially if the mass of one design boats is large enough to support itself. At the risk of sounding standoffish - I'm really not interested in handicap racing at this level. I wouldn't expect handicap racing at a manufacturer's National or North American championship either.

Due to beach and hotel support limitations, the race can only support a max number of boats (25 or 30?) so there's no point in making it a handicap free-for-all (i.e. Texel). There are also safety issues with boats of vastly different speed potentials doing such a race. If it were the only way to make the race survive or even make it attractive to sponsors, then fine, I would accept the need to race under handicap or find something else to do with my time but I would hopefully know that before the commitment is made.

To put it simply, I wish for the combined amount of energy, time, practice, experience, and resources that every person on our team selflessly devotes to this race be judged and rated in as fair manner possible when we slide onto the beach each night...and handicap ain't it.

QFT and sig'd.

What happens when none of the F18's can break through the surf like what happenened in Jupiter last year I think or even worse when only one 18 gets through with a few 20's leaving the rest to go up the coast on trailers.Maybe this is a new thread ,just curious where it leaves the racees integrity.

2007... and the whole fleet would take a penalty. If it was scored overall on corrected, none of them would be in contention. Whereas of the whole fleet sat on the beach that day, they'd all be still competitive with each other.



Fortune favors the brave, and pities the fool.

Now you opened a completely different can of worms there! IMHO, the 20 doesn't have an advantage getting through the surf...in fact, I believe it to be quite the contrary due to the huge fat bows on the 20 really taking a big hit when they try to punch through a wave. The team on the F18 you speak of had very little experience in that kind of surf and, as did Team Seacats and most of the other teams that year, they suffered from it.

As far as the penalty goes, 8 hours added to the last place boat's finish for the day is draconian and will typically take a mid to upper team completely out competition (which our sponsors LOVE (not)). To penalize a team MORE for NOT attempting to launch is even worse.

The penalty should be reasonable. A two hour...or even maybe all the way up to a 4 hour addition is plenty of a penalty to destroy whatever position your team was in but still leave you some clawing you can do within the fleet. You think it's easy to pack up all that boat gear, fix the torn sail, broken battens, tattered rigging? When stuff like that happens, assuming that everyone is still in good physical shape afterward, we're eating that huge penalty AND staying up half the night to put the boat back together and fix everything...there's no tactical advantage to fail getting through the surf.