Sydney-Hobart 2014

If its true the reporter got kicked out for the Australian article above that is a damn disgrace!

 

Loose ... got past me.

I've been doing handicapping for decades and I agree 100% One only has to look at the difference between the top finisher and the 80% of fleet boat in OD racing to know that you cannot handicap accurately. For club level single number systems like PHRF in North America people quit racing over a 6-12 second a mile perceived rating injustice. OD results show that the sailors in the top 80% of a fleet vary by 30 seconds a mile.

Measurement rules are slightly better and any number of them can predict to the +/- 15 sec/mile range for one wind speed. Change the wind speed by 2 knots +/- and the handicap is no longer valid.

Friends don't let friends race handicap.

 

So we arrive at the conclusion that ocean racing is a largely pointless pursuit? Its either chequebook racing or a lottery and OD will not work. Is this where we are?

 

Ocean racing has *always* been a pointless pursuit. Nothing new there. So what? As long as people want to play, it's fine with me. I have a lot of useless and pointless pursuits. Wasting time on the internet being one of them....

PDW

 

The above is precisely why its *not* a lottery. The difference between a top crew and a mid fleet one is so great that no rating difference can overcome it. Handicaps make far less difference than most people think.

 

There's a big difference between a sport that many rich people do as owners, and a sport that ONLY rich people can do as owners.

In the past, ocean racing was only "a sport for rich people" if you consider carpenters, draftsmen, teachers and professors of ancient history to be "rich people". People like that used to be able to own boats that could race in the Hobart, and sometimes do well. Perhaps more importantly as far as enjoyment goes, there were lots of other little boats sailed by people who were also NOT rich that they could race with. And of course there were many races for boats even smaller than the smallest ones that did the Hobart, so it was a sport that you could do for a very modest outlay. For various reasons, that scene has basically collapsed.

There is also a very big difference between doing a race for the enjoyment of it when the enjoyment can include the joy of racing among a bunch of other people on similar boats, and doing a race for the enjoyment of it when that means being left hundreds of miles behind the leaders.

Everyone I know would rather be amongst a bunch of roughly similar boats than left far behind all the other serious competitors, hoping that the wind will work in your favour. These days the increasing spread of speeds means that many boats are racing against very dissimilar boats, which most would agree to be less fun.

 

For Rolex to cause Sue Neals expulsion from the press room on the basis of a well written balanced article is sickening.

More sickening is that the CYC official Di Pearson appeased Rolex by expelling Sue. It's not intelligent behaviour from either Rolex nor the CYC.

Shame on Both.

 

It's a fact that in the past, the CYCA has taken no action whatsover about some fairly trenchant criticism of the Hobart management that appeared in the CYCA's own magazine. There's no evidence that either the club or the sponsor had any part to play in the decision to ban Sue Neales, which is further demonstrated by her note that "John Cameron, commodore of the CYCA, appeared not to be aware of the incident when I brought it to his attention."

It seems to be quite likely that Pearson acted on her own, and it's not the sort of move that would normally be covered by instructions from an employer. Rolex may have said that they were unhappy about the article but that doesn't mean they instructed anyone to ban anyone.

It's a fact that even much smaller advertisers try to influence the sailing media and I'm generally critical of the CYCA and their attitude towards publicity, but we just don't have enough evidence here to hang the club or sponsor.

The CYCA PR seems to be pretty poor in many ways - at the moment the full results are still not available on the website which is bizarre.

On a brighter note, it's good to see that the slowest boat got a commendatory tweat from WOXI. And it's great to see Hicko getting another win with the Rose!

 

Wild Rose wins on handicap-but it twern't no easy thing:
From Scuttlebutt tonight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frPQT3T7im8

 

Great stuff!

She's a really tough old girl, and you don't have to sail her much to see how much confidence Hicko has in her.