My references to NASCAR pertain to their "MODEL". Regardless whether or not you enjoy it, Is there someone out there that will argue that they don't know what they're doing. 36 races, hundreds of thousands of people going to the races every weekend. I think there's something to learn from what they have done.

Interesting, I'm not sure where this got twisted. I don't think anyone said lets forgo the crews and tout the platform. I can't seem to think of any race I've been in where my boat type wasn't listed in a race result.

As far as the fear of manufactures and they're press releases. I have never looked at the front of the local sports page and seen that, TV included. Who has? I can tell you that if it did happen we would all be a twitter about how nice it was to get our sport on the front page. Who is responsible for the press releases. I'm thinking it's the class. The source of my info is this site.

A sailing buddy of mine recently said something to fact that his boat was a race winner and therefore should fetch a better price. My comment to him was I thought "he" sailed the boat. I think we are a lot smarter than to think that by simply switching brands a crew is going from the back to the front.

Even our Government has a freedom of info act, but not the F-18 class.

Les,
I think the key word in the rule is "specific" Based on the definition below I don't see how
the rule is broken by listing the position - crew - boat - sail maker -

Main Entry: 1spe·cif·ic
Pronunciation: spi-'si-fik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Late Latin specificus, from Latin species
1 a : constituting or falling into a specifiable category b : sharing or being those properties of something that allow it to be referred to a particular category

Anyway a good topic.

Bob’s right, it is a conspiracy! Don’t tell anyone but I’m the real deep throat, and Area 51 does have alien space craft!

A friend of mine worked at Groom Lake (Area 51) on the Y-12/SR-71 project. He said the only alien spacecraft he ever saw there was when Close Encounters Of The Third Kind was shown.

Tracie is just trying to hide the fact that the Hobie Tiger is much faster than anything else. She knows her race results would suffer if everyone figured it out.

Mike Hill
www.stlouiscat.com

Am I missing something? I didn't think listing boats in results was "ranking", and therefore would not violate the rule. I would think that you would have to list the sailors by seperate boat brands, in order to rank them as such. But perhaps what Les is expressing, and Mary explained, is the intention of the rule...?

I'd like to know who's on what platform for no other reason than to be able to contact the teams that have the same platform as me and find out how to make it faster.

I'd also like to get feedback from crews that have won races on several different platforms (or at least sailed them) to get their opinions of the various boat/sail/equipment combinations.

Yes, if I were buying a boat, I may consider the platform's results, but just buying whatever showed up on the podium on any given day would be short-sighted.

In my opinion, sailors win races, TEAMS (sailors, support crew, sponsors, and platforms) win series.

I take a bit of a different view. I think that the boats should not be posted because:

1. The manufacturers hire professional teams to skew the results.
2. Some sailors are force to buy one particular boat because the Hobie Class Association is so strong in their area.

What all this does is lead the F18 class down the one design path. How many well designed catamarans have been killed in this manner? Having one dominate boat or a class association in your area which forces to pick one boat undermines development and the whole formula concept.

We will figure it out anyway.

Matt

Hi Mark,

I can't tell you if the rule was there from the beginning of the Class or not. It was there the first time I read the rules for the F18 Class.

In general, I am all for having more information. I can't tell you what the purpose or intent of the rule. I just try to follow the rules. In the F18 Class, I think the rule helps the class for the reasons I stated in a prior post.

Interesting thread! This is what good forums are all about!

Here is my position on all this:
As a member of the media that tries to cover all this racing, I obviously want as much information as possible. The reason the media wants the information is because the readers are interested in that information -- as much information as possible about the sailors as well as about the boats they are sailing.

It is not practical to include all that information in the actual results, because the spread sheet already takes up so much space on a page if there are a lot of races in an event.

However, it would be great to have another printout that just gives the final position, the final points for that position, the names of the sailors, the boat brand, the sail brand(s), and the home town (or port) and state of each of the sailors.

This would give everybody who is on the outside looking in a pretty good picture of the trends in that particular formula class. It would be supplementary information on the class website, with a link to it for all those who are interested.

And when the class sends a story and results to the media, this supplementary information should also be sent.

If the media have this information from the source, they will have the facts from the class, and maybe the class won't have to worry so much about specific manufacturers getting self-serving press releases published.

Going a step further, it would be great to have little bios on each of the sailors in a given formula class, to give the public an idea of their experience sailing in general and with this class in particular. And then a link from their name in the results to their bio.

I know it sounds like a of extra work for someone, but once you have most of the information inputted about all of the class members, it is just a matter of repeating, except when they change boats or sails or move to a different geographic location.

This all is the kind of information that was available to the media and to the public for the Worrell 1000, and it was wonderful.

Hi Mike,



I believe that naming boat make or sail maker is contituting falling into a specifiable category, so doing so is a violation of the rules. Am I missing something here?

It really is a good topic, though!

I read that F18 rule the same as two of the "Mikes" in this thread -- doesn't have anything to do with listing brand names in results, as long as you don't separate them out into separate ranking systems based upon brand. It's strictly informational, like listing total crew weight -- which, by the way, would be another interesting and potentially useful piece of information.

P.S. The fact that that F18 rule is being interpreted in different ways must indicate that it is ambiguous and should be rewritten to make it more clear. It would be important to know what the intent was at the time it was originally written.

There is only one solution to this that appears to please everyone... .. change the freekin' rule! It's so simple!! And I agree, the sailors come first.
Bob

The F18 class rule is not really the issue here. NONE of the Formula classes include brand names in their results, rule or not.

I just figured that maybe Formula classes think of themselves more like one-design classes. And one-design classes also do not list manufacturers in their results. That includes the Tornado, Optimist Dinghy, Snipe, Lightning, Star, and Soling, to mention a few. (And some of them have lots of manufacturers, and can include a variety of building techniques and materials.)

But even in the case of one-designs, I would like to know the manufacturer and sailmaker and construction method, whether home-built or factory.

Wouldn't you?

Oh yea!!

Hi Mary,

Your post read:

Then you think that listing brand names in the overall results complies with the rule as long as you don't list separate results for Brand A, Brand B, and so on? If that were the intent of the rule, why have it at all? You obtain the same information just by naming the brand in the results. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't make sense to me. Just the fact that the information is in the overall results is providing specific rankings according to differing brands, a clear violation, even though it seems to be information many sailors want.

Here in Europe, Of course HC is a great player... but we have plenty of small brands that are able to beet them. These small brands even do not have money to hire Big sailor name... but allow unknown good team to perform on their brands.

When Cirrus became World champion... It should have been a surprise for many racers, same for other brands that succeeded in placing their team in Top 10.

Obviously, sailing for fun is less strick.
Jr

Les, I don't think it complies or does not comply, because I don't think it has anything to do with that rule at all.
The way I read it, the rule is very clear -- don't separate out classes within the Formula 18 class and rank sailors separately for each type of boat. That would be completely counterproductive to the purpose of a Formula class.

Without that rule, people could say, "This Formula class is just a bunch of one-design classes that are racing together boat for boat, and we all want to maintain our one-design status and have rankings within that one-design class, even though we are racing as Formula for these particular events."

If you go to the International Formula 18 web site, you will find at least 15 different brands of boats listed as eligible to race as Formula 18's. It would be ridiculous to separate them all out and list rankings according to manufacturer and then according to brand within that manufacturer.

So, the Formula 18 rule makes perfect sense in that context.

Mary,

But you still believe the rule does not prohibit listing make of boat in the results?

Someone needs to put it to an informal vote (create a poll) as a separate thread and see how the masses interpret the rule as it is written. I.E. Yes or No to how the rule looks to be written to them.
Just for Kicks.

I'm not taking the heat for starting the poll!

I think the rule makes good sense and is in place to prohibit giving out awards or listing results like "First Place Nacra F18, Second Place Nacra F18, First Place Hobie, Second Place Hobie, and so on". I could possibly see some folks trying to do that...or perhaps a manufacturer coming in to try and provide special awards for their platforms. This rule strictly would prohibit such singling out of manufacturers and favoritism and should most certainly be in place (but with perhaps some rewording). I believe this is the intent of the rule as well.

I don't see how it applies to listing what kind of boat 5th place was sailing on. We're not establish "ranking based on manufacturer" by showing what boat 5th place or 7th place was sailing (or everyone). If someone outside of the race or F18 organization wants to put that together, I don't see where it really matters - people do already. People already proclaim that their brand is better than others and use results to backup there assertions. Why hide the fact that we are an organization made up of many different brands and sail makers? Part of the biggest attraction for me to F18 is because the organization is so open, honest, approachable, and does things for the good of its members. Short of some disagreement on an occasional interpretation of a rule , there are not big arguments or political manuevering, nobody trying to hide anything. This is why I believe that more information in the results is not a bad thing - it promotes our values as an open and honest organization AND promotes the fact that we are a multi manufacturer class (which is a strength). It's a new concept in our sport and I understand why the idea gets a bit of resistance...but that's what I think...for what it's worth.