At the Rolex regatta in St. Thomas, this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, a stange decision caught beach cat racers by surprize.
With 9 non spinnaker and 3 spinnaker beach cats registered, the RC, under protest by beach cat sailors, decided to have one class.
Further, the RC decided that the Portsmouth Numbers for spinnaker and nonspinnaker beach cats, are such that the respective classes are all numerically equal under one rating system.
The spinnaker boats where two Tigers from Puerto Rico and one I-20 from St. Croix. There was no spinnaker boats from St. Thomas.
In other words, the RC concluded that a Hobie 16 ( non spin) sails in the same class, and competes, with the F-18's and I-20 spin boats.
Only one set of awards will be given,....hmm,..I wonder who will win
A P-19MX and I-17 refused to race against spinnaker boats and pulled out.
Isn't this unbelievable?
Comments?

regards,

Bruce
St. Croix

odd
devisive
unproductive
demoralizing
nonsense

...to further the insult,...as the beach cat sailors explained the obvious reasons of inequality, the RC very coldly blew them off......
...maybe we make our world wide numbers ( of beach cast) opinion known to Rolex about this....

Bruce

Isn't this how we run the Alter Cup trials?

Bruce

Bonkers

What justification did the RC give for a plainly mad decision..Like trying to race a Dragoon against a Tornado.......

Bruce,
I guess I do not understand your original post. At first I thought you were saying the race committee was going to make you all race boat for boat, with no handicaps applied. But in re-reading it, I have decided you meant that the RC was going to use Portsmouth handicapping. If that is the case, the RC was correct in saying that the Portsmouth handicapping is designed to make it possible for all the boats to race together on an equal basis. In fact, the Portsmouth system is designed so that, in theory, a Tornado could race a Sunfish, and they could correct out equally.

Rhodysail was correct in saying that our Area Qualifiers for the US Sailing Multihull Championship are all raced using Portsmouth handicapping and sometimes include a wide variety of boats, with and without spinnakers.

For most other regattas it is usual procedure to try to put open class boats (Portsmouth handicapping) together based upon relatively comparable Portsmouth ratings, i.e., to start boats of similar speeds together. This makes it more fun for the sailors and makes it easier for the race committee to designate courses and course lengths appropriate for the boat speeds.

However, many regattas here have a five-boat minimum to constitute a fleet. I don't know whether that was the case at the Rolex regatta, but, if so, it is understandable that all the open-class boats had to race together and that it was not feasible to give them separate starts and separate trophies, since there were only three spinnaker boats.

I don't know why you would say it is obvious what boat would win in a diverse group like that. Depending upon the conditions, a Hobie 14 could beat a Hobie Tiger, or a Hobie 17 could beat an I-20.

If it turns out that you really did mean to say that no handicapping was used and it was boat-for-boat racing, please disregard all the above, because that would be totally ridiculous.

Mary
as it stands right now your theroy is pretty much correct, Enrique Figueroa in 1st on a Tiger followed by 2 H-16s ahead of another Tiger,I20, MX, So nonspin boats should be able to race against the spin boats using proper hanicaps. Bruce was referring to Enrique when he made the statement about who would win. Enrique is pretty much a professional racer and is just about impossible for the other boats around here to beat anyway,no matter what boat he sails. Last year some boats came down from the states,including Rick Bliss and the Glazers and Enrique,on a tornado, ran away with the Rolex. In fairness to Bruce even with hanidcaps its an uphill battle to beat a spin boat with a non-spin boat.

The story down at the Rolex is that the RC did NOT recieve enough preregistrations to warrant a split in the two classes. Many of the boats showed up and registered on site. With the 1st place boat in each class recieving a Rolex watch you can probably understand their position. Just another good reason to preregister.

On another note in a breezy race it is not so very difficult to beat spin boats on a well sailed H16. We have seen it quite often. Canandagua, Statue of Liberty are just a couple of events that come to mind. Think about Kiki and his 16 down there when the Inters first showed up. And come to think of it try beating a classic Ol' Shark in light air!

Disclaimer-just my opinion.

I was watching the entrants from last week and most of the boats HAD already signed up.. so Im sure how the RC came up with that .

Mary, Simon, Harper and all,
We love our sport, and just want to go-like-heck and have fun.
It started with the Rolex notice of race. This says 6 boats make a class. We had 9 non spin beach cats enter and that make a class. Eventually, 3 spin cats showed, not enough to make a class. LAst year there were 2 classes.
A verbal was agreed to, one week before, that the less-than-6 class had 2 choices;
1. have their own class with trophies but no Rolex,or
2. join in the non spin class (leaving the spin on shore).

Then, come the night before the start, the RC changed position, ignored the requests of the majority, said one class and dissolved the non spin beach cat class ( that abided with the NOR).
We just wanted the same rights as the monohull racers. This would never had been considered with the monohulls.
Mary, you mean, under Portsmouth, the beach cats can sail against J-24's and such? That might be interesting.
For example, a non spin P19MX has the same number as a F-18 spin cat ( Tiger, N-18, Inter-18),..I just cannot see the rating working in cases like that....do you?

regards,
Bruce
St. Croix

Here is a link to day one.
Nice picture of Kiki and Jorge on the Tiger

http://www.caribbeanracing.com/artman/publish/article_437.shtml

ps. The comment about not enough pre register is a cop out. One week before race day, we had enough registered online for class. Truth!

Bruce
St. Croix

Here is a link on day two.

Again, another nice Kiki and Jorge pic;

http://www.caribbeanracing.com/artman/publish/article_438.shtml

HArper and I remenber this course last year, It is the Atlantic ocean side of the islands. I pulled out, with 2 others. Harper completed the race.
HArp, how do these conditions sound to you,...bring back memories?

And here is a link to the times in this race. Scroll down to Beach Cats ( you have to go by a whole lot of monohull classes to get there )

http://www.rolexcupregatta.com/2004/ResultsRace3.shtm

I still do not see a P19MX even-up with a spinnaker F-18. Just my opinion, thats all.

YOu can see Kiki/Jorge finished in 2 1/2 hours, the rest are kinda out there ( the i-20 spin was 45 minutes behind,..yes, the Puerto Rican Hobie 16 rated out third..!)


Bruce
St. Croix

oh yesss I remember quite well what the inside passage was like....I feel pretty sure that Enrique had some say in the final status of the class...there were plenty of boats signed up long before the regatta...another thing..why do the IC-24s get their own race course and the beachcats have to race with the monohulls that have no regard for right of way when it comes to a beachcat...and...the Rolex caters to the big boats..the beachcats are an after thought...

I disagree with this comment.....

I believe that in challenging conditions such as strong winds or gusty conditions a spinnaker boat can be more vunerable than a non spinnaker boat as with a 2 man boat Vs 1 man boat.

This is because of the greater risk off losing ground due to mistakes during manovers on a boat with more crew or a more complicated boat such as one with a spinnaker.

It is more so the case with short course races where boats have to perform more manouvers in a shorter period of time. Spin boats can blow a drop or set. Crewed boats with the crew working together for the perfect tack, gybe or mark rounding have more off a chance to make a mistake than a one man boat that dose not have to co-ordinate with a crew.

I have seen many top A Class sailors on the heals of a Tornado in short course racing. Whilst the T makes the ground in a straight line the A Class can make it up on an efficent mark rounding.

On the other end of the scale, over a larger course, a Spinnaker boat can stretch it's legs with the kite up and can stay in pressure moving down the course longer.

Just my thoughts.

point well taken...but you have to remember that these guys grew up sailing in these conditions. 15-20 and 3-5 ft seas is very nornal conditions here.

To All,
Well, it is all over, now inthe history books.

The last day turned out to be 1 race (40-50 min).

The 3 day regatta evolved as a 4 race event.

see link for times in race 4

http://www.rolexcupregatta.com/2004/ResultsRace4.shtm

..and link to final article;

http://www.caribbeanracing.com/artman/publish/article_439.shtml

, ok, BVI Spring regatta in 4 days,..gotta go to work now ( yes, we work down here )

Bruce
St Croix