Idea for competition between 3 very different yachts

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YKPLondon

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Hello,

some friends of mine will be holding an organised event this weekend on the Solent involving 3 quite different yachts (ranging from 36 to 47ft). The crews are amateurs. They want to have some kind of a competition to make it attractive for the crews. Given the differing yachts a straightforward race probably does not make much sense. Can someone suggest any ideas? I was thinking of a kind of orienteering race, where crews need to navigate to various waypoints e.g. buoys in a set order and take photographs. The smaller yacht could have a shorter route vs the larger one.

Any suggestions how to work out speed handicaps for the different yachts?


Thanks,

Gregory
 
I think having the same start finish line, but differing courses is the right approach. Have a range of courses available and only select them on the day with the most up to date weather info you can get, to give your best guess of all three boats taking exactly the same time for their respective courses. Additional prize for the crew member of each boat who gives the most accurate estimation of their time for the course.

Rather a lot comes down to the ability of the organisers to estimate what the conditions will be like and how they will affect the boats, but trying to have them all finishing at the same time makes for a much more interesting exercise for the crew.

A variant would be a sternchase, with all boats doing the same course, but the faster boats setting off later, again first one over the line is the winner. The disadvantage of this is that if one boat is much quicker, they will have to kick their heels in port when they could be out sailing.
 
How about tasks that are less dependent on boat speed, e.g. Who can do the fastest MOB under sail; the longest 'look no hands' sailing with the helm lashed; hmm come to think of it you could set a wee course or task to sail where all you are allowed to touch is the sheets. That would be a challenge!
 
YKPLondon said:
...some friends of mine will be holding an organised event this weekend on the Solent involving 3 quite different yachts (ranging from 36 to 47ft). The crews are amateurs.
Click to expand...

Long range forecast is starting to look rather blowy for next w/e.
 
Keep the courses really short - say 20 mins - with loads of buoys to go round.Do several races rather than one
This puts emphasis on boat handling. A bigger boat might be faster but harder to get spinnaker up & down & legs not long enough for the biggest boat to use its speed advantage
Also the start becomes more important for a short race and the pre start manouvers can be harder in a bigger yacht thus slowing it down.
make a rule that on the down wind leg every boat MUST hoist the spinnaker between 2 specified buoys even for a short distance. This makes crew work harder. If you have 4 buoys in a line ( spaced as 2 close pairs) & the boats cannot go past the second before spinnaker is up & cannot start a drop until past the third ,so may well overshoot the 2nd or 4th if a bit slow in crew work. This means a better handled boat can catch up if a boat overshoots a buoy & has to go back to pass the buoy

Sailing round a shallow sand bank helps a smaller boat if it can cut the corner & makes them work the depths better
 
A popular game for corporate events is a buoy challenge where each mark is allocated a number of points, i.e. nearest 10 points, furthest away 100, and all in between. It is then down to the crews to decide on a plan to round whichever marks they wish to gather the highest number of points in the time available. It requires some agreement on strategy, calculation of speed based on wind and tide, etc. Ten bonus points are allocated for each different helmsman so they are incentivised to take it in turns.
 
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How about a pursuit race?

Give the boats handicaps based on the Byron PY numbers, IRC or the NHC Base List:

http://www.byronsoftware.org.uk/bycn/byboat.htm
http://www.ircrating.org/race-organisation/on-line-tcc-listings
http://www.rya.org.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/technical/Web Documents/NHC/NHCBaseList010614.xlsx

Pick a length of race (say 90 minutes) and choose a course you think will take roughly that time.

Work out the start times based on the handicaps so that the slower boats start first.

Whoever is in the lead after 90 minutes is the glorious victor.

Pursuit races are more fun for amateurs than a normal handicap race because they can see the time difference in action and there can often be a very close finish between very different boats.

If you use IRC or NHC numbers for the boats you can use this RORC spreadsheet to work out the start times:

http://www.us-irc.org/files/pursuit_race_starting_times_calculation.xls
 
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It's very difficult to get fair racing (even fun racing) between yachts sailing at significantly different speeds over different courses in strongly tidal waters. If you're going to do it, you'll have to include the tides in your planning of the courses so no one is unfaily disadvantaged. Most IRC racing is in classes of quite closely matched boats.

You could do short windward leeward type courses as suggested above. It does test boat handling especially, but would the boats be comparable in terms of downwind sails? If you just go for white sails, then you make the boat handling too simple to be a challenge.

In terms of handicap, a polite enquiry to the RORC (IRC) rating office would likely get you typical handicaps for the boats involved.
 
How about something similar to a time trial? Either set a specific time to cross the line and the boat that is closest to that time wins. The course can be set so that certain points have to be passed at certain times. Alternatively, set a course and a time to the finish line based on say, 4 knots. Whoever keeps to 4 knots wins.
 
YKPLondon said:
Hello,

some friends of mine will be holding an organised event this weekend on the Solent involving 3 quite different yachts (ranging from 36 to 47ft). The crews are amateurs. They want to have some kind of a competition to make it attractive for the crews. Given the differing yachts a straightforward race probably does not make much sense. Can someone suggest any ideas? I was thinking of a kind of orienteering race, where crews need to navigate to various waypoints e.g. buoys in a set order and take photographs. The smaller yacht could have a shorter route vs the larger one.

Any suggestions how to work out speed handicaps for the different yachts?


Thanks,

Gregory
Click to expand...
I have read (but not yet tried) "SNOOKER". Existing buoys are designated either red or a specific colour, and you "pot" them by rounding them. Each yachtsman has to try and get max points eg potting red /black ad nauseum then all the colours in order, but.... he has to choose which red , when and cannot revisit any reds, and has to finish in a time limit.
 
Another semi-racing option we have met is the Treasure Hunt. This needs more preparation, since someone needs to go round earlier and plant "clues" in the form of notices on marks.

Another competition which was fun (because I won) was for entrants to post (by text) their ETAs, and the nearest to the time won. After a four-hour trip I was within a minute of my time, in spite of taking my watch off and hiding it. The committee didn't really believe me, and I don't suppose you do either.
 
How bout have the crews change yachts at different points in the race... Each crew having one go on each yacht... Cumulative time on all three legs for the individual crew...
 
If they really want to race do an average lap race. Short course, keep going round for a reasonable time counting the laps and taking the time when each boat crosses the start/finish line. Divide number of laps completed by finish time for last lap gives average time per lap. Multiply by handicaps to get corrected lap time per lap. Everyone sails roughly the same length of time in the same wind/tide conditions.
 
There is a 24 hour race in the Netherlands where the boats start at one of about 20 start ports, and from there have to pass a particular buoy for that port. After that, they choose their course logging any of the dozens of valid buoys, and all finish within an hour of each other at Medemblik. They are not allowed to repeat any part of their course. The course each has taken is collected by the organisers who do some magic with a computer to apply handicaps, and decide who has won the various classes. It is very popular with hundreds of entrants - Medemblik harbour is crammed with rafts of yachts at the end.

So why not do the same sort of thing - all start together, with a time limit of 6 hours or something, and select a reasonable collection of widely spaced buoys. The boats all work out the course which will suit them to visit as many as they wish taking wind tide and the characteristics of their boat into account. Work out the distances between the buoys as the crow flies, so that the smaller boat may be able to take a shorter line than the bigger one due to depth. You can apply a handicap based on LOA, or one of the rating systems, or make it up. I don't suppose anyone will be too bothered by the end!

I guess it depends on the type of people you are dealing with - that sort of race challenges the more intellectual problem-solving crews, where others might favour a quick blast around the cans.
 
Thanks for all the great suggestions.

In the end, on the day, the conditions were a bit too windy to have any form of competition. I think it was going up to about force 7 at Nab tower. On the yacht I was skippering we lost the furling line from the head sail about 2 hours after leaving Gosport. The head sail then developed a fairly nasty tear when we tried to get it down. Then our engine failed due to an impeller problem, finally just outside of Cowes one of the shackles on the mainsheet traveller gave up ;-) Fortunately some very nice people did offer to tow us into Cowes. Thanks you! And we managed to fix everything once we were in the marina.

So as far as 'number of problems experienced', 'lessons learned' and 'team spirit' we definitely won.

Gregory
 
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