Super-Zero Class--UK Separates Canters

From Scuttlebutt:

UK SEPARATES CANTERS
Cowes, Isle of Wight, UK: The creation of a Super-Zero class with its own race series at Skandia Cowes Week 2007, is all set to entice the owners and skippers of the world's largest and fastest ocean racing yachts to compete at next year's event (4-11 August). This new class meets the demands of the owners of mainstream Class 1 boats to separate canting keelers from boats with fixed keels. Virtually everyone in the racing world would agree that pitting boats with canting keels against their fixed keel cousins is unsatisfactory and is more akin to racing multihulls against monohulls. Therefore, regardless of rating, owners/skippers of any boat of over 14 metres LOA that has a canting keel and that wants to take part in the Regatta, will have to sail in this new Super-Zero Series, unless they fix their keel amidships and re-rate accordingly. -- Full story: http://tinyurl.com/y7drrp

[BOATMIK]

Hmmmm,

Akin to racing multis against the monos!?

Not a chance - the multis would outclass both canters and non canters by so much that it would suddenly appear as if canters and non canters should be in the same class again.

It is almost 50 years since it was decided by mainstream yacht clubs to keep multis out of most offshore racing.

Maybe it is time for sailing clubs and yacht clubs to welcome all comers.

MIK!

[CT 249]

I sail different types of boards, beach cats, cruising cats, various yachts and dinghies. I'm often struck how different the classes and types are in many ways, and how important the mix of types in a club is. In a city club, I think it's vital to ensure that the class cultures don't diverge too much, or people have so little in common, as sailors, that conflict can brew up. And there are many problems with managing a race that has widely divergent boats.

This isn't saying all multis should be out. Nor does it mean that clubs should be monocultures; in the last year or so I've looked into bringing in cats in one mono club, voted R/C boats into a dinghy club, and helped introduce a new OD board into a board/TY/skiff/dinghy club. But it just seems this needs a fair bit of very careful consideration. Interestingly, the club that has only dinghys and boards (cats are banned; yachts and TYs are banned) is the strongest (120+ starters in a good typical week) and is much bigger than it used to be.

There's always an assumption that it's the mono sailors at fault for the exclusion. That may have been true 40-50 years ago (and then safety was a factor as the early multis in Oz often had a very poor safety record) but at the moment, the off-the-beach cat clubs in Sydney are just as exclusionary towards monos. They may actually be MORE so; one has no Hobies and there's a feeling the club doesn't like them, the other has mainly Hobies and is allegedly very pro-Hobie to the exclusion of other boats.

Finally, it's interesting to see that there seems to be no indication that having an "all comers" policy actually results in stronger clubs. I've known many clubs that started out diluting their membership so that once-strong clubs are now a collection of off-the-beach sailors, cruising yachties, windsurfers, kayakers, dragon boat owners and sailing school people, with not a thing in common. No one seems to feel at home their anymore, in a place where so many people are strangers who speak a different language.