The minutes for the recent IMCA Aus. Annual general meeting has the following on “Race car finishes”
RO at SoPYC has interpreted that all moths have balance of 15 minute time limit after the winner to complete course, and if they do not complete they are scored on the number of laps completed. This results in boats being lapped but continuing to complete a lap after the winner has finished. This is because practice is new in WA.
But it does have some benefits.
Discussion recommended that we rewrite component of Sis to reflect previous practice where all boats stop at next crossing of finish line/gate after winner completes course.
After sailing at SIRS this year, I have a very strong opinion on the idea of time limits like this one, they suck. The race car way is by far the best when you are racing at the back and it actually adds the need to know where the leader is and if they are going to pass you or not on the last leg.
The 10 or 15 minute time limit idea is just bad, as it means that you might be halfway up the work when your time limit has expired and you have no idea. It is much easier to know, OK I have been lapped, and then must follow the leaders to the finish and record your score.
I also expect that it will make back to back starts quicker as you don’t need to wait for people like me to finish a lap, after the time limit has expired because I don’t know when the leader has finished if he hasn’t lapped me yet.
Race car finishes, without silly time limits are the way to go.
15 minute time limit is the way to go, you either make it or you don’t.
KISS
I couldn’t disagree more. That type of system at SIRS made the back of the fleet scorecard such a joke that we had to keep our own.
That system completely breaks down in the moth fleet when it has foilers and Scows which we have at 90% of the main regattas in Australia.
We just had the “Race Car” finishes at the states in Geelong and it worked a treat! Saves waiting around between starts and lapped boats can still have a great race!
But… i fell for the trick of letting the leader through so I didn’t have to do another lap but at the same time wasn’t watching my close competitor and let him through too and Geelong being Geelong, he made up further positions. DAMN!
Only thing is the RC need to be switched on. We did have a few races where scores were wrong.
But it would get my vote!
In Perth we had both the 15min limit (after the winner) and the race car finish, so everyone got a score based on laps completed. The thing they did differently to previous nationals and states since about 2006 was that they allowed us to try for another lap even if we were lapped, and if we made the disctance in the 15minutes it counted. Not everyone understood the PRO’s interpretation until half way through the regatta, which was about when we had the AGM.
The meeting decided the way we had been doing it in the eastern states was clearer for both the RC and the sailors.
What did work well for some was that they counted laps completed and scored everyone who made at least one lap, whether or not they crossed the line in the 15minute period after the winner. So if you broke down on the second lap you still got a result.
Scoring is then everyone in order who completed all laps, folllowed by everyone in order who completed one less, etc.
Bruce’s reference to SIRS was where we had to complete the whole course within 15mins to score at all, and about 1/3 the fleet struggled to make it.
just make it if you get time limited the sailor gets finishers plus 2. That way if only one person can foil no big frigging deal…