JOG eligibility

[Fox Morgan]

I'm intrigued.

Which JOG boats are owned by companies? Having raced in that fleet all season I can't think of one that's obviously owned through a company.

Most of the boats in the fleet I know are owned and run by individuals, but there's a few that are a bit more business like, eg, Old Mother gun, is a chartered boat, ie coded and takes paying crew according to their website. There's a few other boats that are owned by the "owners company" which is a nice way to offset some tax and is a sensible way of running a competitive boat. (Hey I'd do it too if I could) But if you line those up alongside boats that a more limited budget shall we say but the same or similar handicap, it means that no matter which class a corinthian spirited person tries to race in, there will always be the bigger budgeted boats full of crew or syndicates. I know it's just the nature of the game when it's an apparatus sport that is benefitted by those with deep pockets, but it makes me sad, then that boats with really low budgets that eek along with a sponsor can't then compete in JOG because of a sticker.
maybe some sort of caveat, yeah you can have sponsors logos but you can't have all carbon sails... or maybe race results can't count for the overall end result, or something. There'd be so few, it would be feasible for the committee to make a descision according to circumstance.
I dunno. There's such a disparity between the ways boats are owned and run. I think the JOG fleet is the best, most sociable racing club of the lot. I'd love to see a way for more inclusion for boats like Scaramouch or maybe ones from the Ellen Macarthur trust, or from a university team.

 

[flaming]

OMG I know something about as one of our crew is also an OMG regular. I'm 90% sure that she is not coded. You do not have to be coded to take paying guests in a race if you comply with ISAF rules. (Which of course you must do as a requirement of entry to the race). Given the number of OMG regulars I keep meeting in pubs, I'm pretty sure that paying guests are something of a rarity, and I certainly wouldn't call OMG a big budget boat. It's also one that's been owned and campaigned by the same chap for years, with a lot of the same crew.

You have though reminded me that a couple of the race charter boats do the occasional JOG race. Which I don't have a problem with as those businesses do a great job of introducing people to racing and aren't normally in the chocolates, and certainly not going for the overall season win. By the nature of the economics of that business they are also almost always in class 3, which would not apply to very many of the cash strapped sailors you are talking about, who tend to be in smaller or older boats with lower ratings than a fairly modern 40 footer.

The issue with sponsorship is not of course the low budget "eeking along" boats but the high budget boats with lots of sponsorship and I think JOG is quite right to want to not include boats that by any objective measure are professional.
The question would be how you would write a rule that effectively bans high budget sponsored boats without banning boats such as Scaramouche and yourself. Not sure that banning sail material works, as what happens if the low budget boat gets hold of some second hand carbon sails?

 

[Fox Morgan]

The question would be how you would write a rule that effectively bans high budget sponsored boats without banning boats such as Scaramouche and yourself. Not sure that banning sail material works, as what happens if the low budget boat gets hold of some second hand carbon sails?

that's a very good question. I think about cycle sport and motorsport (the other two disciplines I am or have been professionally involved with as a journalist or participant) to compete in cycling at a national level on velodrome, the bikes all have a minimum weight, which means those who can afford super light carbon don't have an advantage over those who can only afford aluminium frames, use of double disc wheels can be restricted too. In lower level motorsport there's budget restrictions, such as only one engine allowed or only one mechanic/helper allowed or two sets of tyres allowed per race meet. Which can help level the playing field and not give undue advantage to those who have strong financial backing. (we're talking amateur not pro levels)

back on the water, maybe a restriction on sail wardrobe can help in the lower level competitive sailing? 3 sails max (plus storm sails) ? limit crew numbers? limit the number of different crew per boat per season?
I don't like limits, but it can help to make it more attractive or fulfilling for those who can't compete with the higher budget boats and would mean that a boat with sponsorship for a charity or for a social or community project could also compete, with logos etc.
Also, maybe more encouragement for the boats who are reaching a point where they are tipping into professional territory could be pushed to go and join the RORC races. (as some JOG boats already do)

 

[Nico]

that's a very good question. I think about cycle sport and motorsport (the other two disciplines I am or have been professionally involved with as a journalist or participant) to compete in cycling at a national level on velodrome, the bikes all have a minimum weight, which means those who can afford super light carbon don't have an advantage over those who can only afford aluminium frames, use of double disc wheels can be restricted too. In lower level motorsport there's budget restrictions, such as only one engine allowed or only one mechanic/helper allowed or two sets of tyres allowed per race meet. Which can help level the playing field and not give undue advantage to those who have strong financial backing. (we're talking amateur not pro levels)

back on the water, maybe a restriction on sail wardrobe can help in the lower level competitive sailing? 3 sails max (plus storm sails) ? limit crew numbers? limit the number of different crew per boat per season?
I don't like limits, but it can help to make it more attractive or fulfilling for those who can't compete with the higher budget boats and would mean that a boat with sponsorship for a charity or for a social or community project could also compete, with logos etc.
Also, maybe more encouragement for the boats who are reaching a point where they are tipping into professional territory could be pushed to go and join the RORC races. (as some JOG boats already do)

Surely handicapping takes care of the variation from boat to boat. What you are talking about in other sports is more a sort of limited one-design. You also seem to be confusing the amount of money that is spent on a boat with the source of the money and the way it is used. JOG quite simply says that advertising is not allowed, and that is simple to administer and police. That doesn't stop Larry Ellison from entering a boat, as long as it meets the rules. But he can't brand it as Oracle or even Mrs Ellison's Home Made Cakes. The assumption is that he won't be interested in such a campaign because it'll neither have the status or the financial return.

I agree that the case of e.g. Scaramouche is difficult but if they are sponsored then they probably have more money than the club boats I have sailed in JOG events, albeit maybe higher costs. RORC events are not only about the RANs and BOBs, so Scaramouche shouldn't discount entering those either.

 

[Fox Morgan]

Surely handicapping takes care of the variation from boat to boat. What you are talking about in other sports is more a sort of limited one-design. You also seem to be confusing the amount of money that is spent on a boat with the source of the money and the way it is used.

I agree that the case of e.g. Scaramouche is difficult but if they are sponsored then they probably have more money than the club boats I have sailed in JOG events, albeit maybe higher costs. RORC events are not only about the RANs and BOBs, so Scaramouche shouldn't discount entering those either.

I'm not referring to one design in other sports, a bike race has a power rating according to engine size and number of cylinders, (e very similar to the irc handicap rating/banding) a cycle race rates the people by category (4,3,2,1 and elite) as the equipment used (frames/wheels etc) is controlled by a set of standards and measurements. The additional restrictions are set at the club level to maintain fairness and to ensure a test of human skill and not deepness of pockets. (ie, you shouldn't be able to buy your way onto an amateur podium)

The IRC handicapping works to a degree, to divide up the boats according to speed potential, but then there's quite a few variables that allow boats with larger crews and larger budgets to compete alongside those who don't have such large pool of crew to work with or sail budget, or sail wardrobe. It would make sense for there to be further restrictions at club level, so boats might have a tighter restriction on their sail wardrobe for each race. Making it more tactical. maybe restricting the number of carbon sails per boat or specify white sails only with one downwind sail allowed per race. it would be interesting to see if that would level things out.
I'd be very keen to race alongside boats in the same handicap category as me, especially if we all had the same class of sail and same number of sails on each boat.

I'd also be very happy to see boats with sponsorship stickers on them, if this kind of restriction was in place. There's no amount of money can give them the advantage in this case.

 

[Ingwe]

I'm not referring to one design in other sports, a bike race has a power rating according to engine size and number of cylinders, (e very similar to the irc handicap rating/banding) a cycle race rates the people by category (4,3,2,1 and elite) as the equipment used (frames/wheels etc) is controlled by a set of standards and measurements. The additional restrictions are set at the club level to maintain fairness and to ensure a test of human skill and not deepness of pockets. (ie, you shouldn't be able to buy your way onto an amateur podium)

The IRC handicapping works to a degree, to divide up the boats according to speed potential, but then there's quite a few variables that allow boats with larger crews and larger budgets to compete alongside those who don't have such large pool of crew to work with or sail budget, or sail wardrobe. It would make sense for there to be further restrictions at club level, so boats might have a tighter restriction on their sail wardrobe for each race. Making it more tactical. maybe restricting the number of carbon sails per boat or specify white sails only with one downwind sail allowed per race. it would be interesting to see if that would level things out.
I'd be very keen to race alongside boats in the same handicap category as me, especially if we all had the same class of sail and same number of sails on each boat.

I'd also be very happy to see boats with sponsorship stickers on them, if this kind of restriction was in place. There's no amount of money can give them the advantage in this case.

I think you are looking at all of this slightly the wrong way. For example having a large crew pool has nothing to do with the amount of money the owner is spending and you will normally find that the best boats will have pretty stable crews for years at a time.

Rules to do with sails are a complete non starter in any mixed handicap fleet as there will be too big a variations in the optimum sail plans for the boats. Insisting on people using Dacron sails also ends up costing more money than using the latest hi tech sails as the Dacron sails loose shape scarily quickly, in the one design fleets where Dacron sails are mandatory you often find that to win a nationals or above level event you pretty much have to turn up with a brand new set of sails.

Probably the biggest performance advantage that can be "bought" is dry sailing the boat but compared to leaving the boat in a marina on the water all season it isn't that much more expensive eg I reckon it costs me £400 a year more to dry sail by the time you factor in cost of anti foiling and doing a couple of scrubs during the season.

Unfortunately in sailing there will always be someone who is prepared to spend more money than you to win an event, yes you can sail in a strict one design class to negate this to some extent but if you look at the current biggest one design which is the j70 the top boats are all spending truly absurd amounts of money.

But there are loads of ways to significantly improve without spending any money the two things that 90% of cruiser racers never do is go out and actually train and the other thing is that most boats never adjust their shroud / rig tensions to the conditions as there will easily be a quarter of a knots difference in upwind vmg between a boat that has the optimum rig tension compared to one that hasn't.

 

[flaming]

Probably the biggest performance advantage that can be "bought" is dry sailing the boat but compared to leaving the boat in a marina on the water all season it isn't that much more expensive eg I reckon it costs me £400 a year more to dry sail by the time you factor in cost of anti foiling and doing a couple of scrubs during the season.

Our owner thinks it's cheaper.

You're absolutely right that there are an awful lot of things that poorly funded boats could be doing to sail better, but don't.

The point about crew pool is interesting. Being frank, would I sail on the boat that I do if I thought the boat was uncompetitive? No, I wouldn't. So whilst you're right that the size of the crew pool has nothing to do with the cash the owner is spending, there is a link with the type of sailor that you can attract. And yes, the best boats have very stable crew, but the crew want to stay because they are being successful, and frankly that's more fun than not being successful. Plenty of good crew will stay with a boat if they see that they are improving, and having fun, but very few will stay if they're always in the back 1/3 of the fleet. In any competition it takes a strange type of person to turn up every week to be last.

And there's a mix of reasons, is it the boat or the owner? I can think of more than one boat that has brand new sails, a clean bottom, all the gear, potential to win race after race, but no crew. And that's down to the owner and their ability or persona on the boat.

There is also this strange perception amongst many owners (and some crew) that the owner should pay the crew's expenses. This is very odd to me. I get to play on someone else's expensive toy, that he maintains and enters in races, and I expect him to buy lunch too? Balls to that, we feed the owner! To my mind the owner's bills should be no more than if he was entering a singlehanded race.

 

[MissFitz]

There is also this strange perception amongst many owners (and some crew) that the owner should pay the crew's expenses. This is very odd to me. I get to play on someone else's expensive toy, that he maintains and enters in races, and I expect him to buy lunch too? Balls to that, we feed the owner! To my mind the owner's bills should be no more than if he was entering a singlehanded race.

+1

That's the attitude I've always had. In fact, I'm happy to contribute to running costs (to the best of my ability) if it's a boat I really want to race on - although I've noticed that owners usually seem to prefer to cover those themselves.

 

[Fox Morgan]

+1

That's the attitude I've always had. In fact, I'm happy to contribute to running costs (to the best of my ability) if it's a boat I really want to race on - although I've noticed that owners usually seem to prefer to cover those themselves.

Therein lies part of the problem of yacht racing, particularly at lower levels.
I don't actually know more than 4 people who I would want to crew or sail on my boat and trust them with being competitive/good sailors. None of those are available at the same time. So I end up double handing or having to jump on a friends boat as crew. Which is fine and we all chip in for the racing and vitteling costs equally.

I couldn't imagine racing on a boat where I don't know people, just to JOG race because it's a competitive boat, that's starting to take it a bit seriously isn't it?
The boats that attract the bigger crews, I'm not sure how they do that. But I guess it involves either club level organisation or some sort of crew pool online group thingy. It's taking it all a bit more seriously than amateur level. Dry sailing also feels like quite a step away from the corinthian spirited sailing I'm familiar with, other than dinghy sailing of course.

I stopped cycle racing on the velodrome years back because it was too much of an obsession. Every ride, everywhere, all the time, was a "training" ride or I was racing. It was never for pure pleasure anymore. I lost sight of the reason I raced or cycled. I haven't got time to faff about "training" for a sailing race.

I can still run a boat, for fun, on a low budget and enjoy racing (yes that even applies if I come last), especially if other boat owners are of a similar mind and don't go crazy adding bells and whistles to their boats or have a pool of semi-pro crew on-board. I actually take pleasure in having fewer expenses for the boat and keeping it very basic with a limited set of sails. If a sponsored boat full of scouts or other young people or social club is of the same handicap as mine, I have no problem with that though.

 

[Nico]

There is also this strange perception amongst many owners (and some crew) that the owner should pay the crew's expenses. This is very odd to me. I get to play on someone else's expensive toy, that he maintains and enters in races, and I expect him to buy lunch too? Balls to that, we feed the owner!

I think that model was always the case some years back, probably left over from the paid crew mentality, but I've come across a few boats operating on the basis of putting in a few quid for fuel, which is fine by me.

 

[flaming]

Therein lies part of the problem of yacht racing, particularly at lower levels.
I don't actually know more than 4 people who I would want to crew or sail on my boat and trust them with being competitive/good sailors. None of those are available at the same time. So I end up double handing or having to jump on a friends boat as crew. Which is fine and we all chip in for the racing and vitteling costs equally.

I couldn't imagine racing on a boat where I don't know people, just to JOG race because it's a competitive boat, that's starting to take it a bit seriously isn't it?
The boats that attract the bigger crews, I'm not sure how they do that. But I guess it involves either club level organisation or some sort of crew pool online group thingy. It's taking it all a bit more seriously than amateur level. Dry sailing also feels like quite a step away from the corinthian spirited sailing I'm familiar with, other than dinghy sailing of course.
.

I find that odd. I've run the crew organisation for the boat I race on for about 8 years now. Excluding my wife there is 1 regular sailor that I knew before I started sailing on that boat. The whole of the rest have been recruited in one way or another over the years and have become real friends. We had a whole bunch of them at our wedding, and socialise with them away from just sailing. If I'd stuck to only people I already knew, then that's just way too small a pool. Sure you get the odd person who simply doesn't fit with the crew dynamic, but most people who just want to sail are pretty easy going and fun people in my experience.

If you wanted a full crew for your boat, it's never been easier to find them, this is exactly the sort of task that social media excels at.

At our level "training" means leaving the dock with enough time to put the sails up before the start and run through some manoeuvres. That's it, we're not organising training days where there is no racing.

 

[TallBuoy]

I agree that the case of e.g. Scaramouche is difficult but if they are sponsored then they probably have more money than the club boats I have sailed in JOG events, albeit maybe higher costs. RORC events are not only about the RANs and BOBs, so Scaramouche shouldn't discount entering those either.

Yes they are now sufficiently well funded to keep the project going for at least another year, and the boat has been upgraded thanks to others' generosity. It simply couldn't work without external money because nothing comes from the school budget, and the parents of crew have insufficient funds.

This year they completed five RORC races, including the Fastnet, and became the first school ever to get a series result. However, this was a huge time demand on 2 teachers in particular, and also limited the number of students who could benefit. JOG provides a range of race lengths/durations which would allow different students to participate in each race according to age, experience, and ability.

 

[MissFitz]

Therein lies part of the problem of yacht racing, particularly at lower levels.
I don't actually know more than 4 people who I would want to crew or sail on my boat and trust them with being competitive/good sailors. None of those are available at the same time. So I end up double handing or having to jump on a friends boat as crew. Which is fine and we all chip in for the racing and vitteling costs equally.

I couldn't imagine racing on a boat where I don't know people, just to JOG race because it's a competitive boat, that's starting to take it a bit seriously isn't it?

Unfortunately some of us aren't lucky enough to have lots of friends with boats! So if we want to go racing - particularly offshore racing - we have to ask around at our local club, look on social media etc. I think a lot of people then do what I've mostly done, which is try crewing on various different boats until I found ones I liked. For me, that has usually meant competitive boats because I like to learn from people who really know what they're doing, but it's not just about the results. It's also about finding the right fit in terms of the skipper, crew, type of boat, racing schedule etc. And in the process, I've met lots of new people I would otherwise never have met & made lots of new friends & had some great racing. What's not to like?