Sunday, July 24, 2011

↕↕↑ WTF, another upwind finish ...

Everybody loves an upwind finish on a W/L course if it puts them closer to home, but let’s get down to brass tacks. Forget the ape; how much does an upwind finish cost the integrity of a handicapped race?

 I’m sure you really love a Course-5 when you’re racing on a boat that has a decent waterline and can go upwind for days without hardly a hike, but what if you’re sailing on what they call a “downwind sled”?

I’m not at all against upwind finishes ... in one-design. Hell, in one-design racing, you could lay out a course shaped like a dodecahedron for all I care. Same goes for box-rule. But when different boats with different ratings for different reasons are racing against each other, I think the course should be completely even.

Basically, what I’m against is a course without a matched "L" for every "W" in a handicapped W/L race.

Every time I’ve voiced this opinion in the past few years, I’ve always been rebuked with, “well, that’s handicapped racing for you”. As if it’s MY fault for sailing in a handicapped fleet. (Yeah yeah, we all know I belong in a handicapped SOMETHING, but let’s just keep this to sailing, okay?)

Granted, this complaint about an additional upwind leg is a pretty trivial matter. I mean, what is one leg? One to two miles? That’s it. No big deal. But I don’t know … I’ve seen one or two miles make or break races for boats that had no business making or breaking anything, you know what I mean?   

Look at some of the factors that go into a boat’s rating - sail area, spars, foils, ballast, hull design, weight, interior/exterior design. All of these things factor into making a fair rating, but they all affect performance differently depending on wind direction. Yes, I understand that other conditions factor into the equation, but let’s tackle these issues one at a time.

I’m just saying that if the point of handicapped ratings is to put all of the boats on an even playing field, then shouldn't the playing field itself be an even playing field?

These are things you don’t really think about until your breeze does a 180 a few times on a Course-5 and you get stuck racing four upwind legs and only one downwind. Talk about a brutal DFL; I think I have post traumatic stress disorder from that race.

Anyways, I feel like a pansy for even bringing it up. I'm never one to shout about things not being fair because I either genuinely do not give a shit or because I don't see the point in complaining. But maybe this is one of those things that could use some changing, so maybe I'm okay for being the little bitch and complaining about it. Just this once.  

Oh god. Did I just write about a "neither here nor there" topic again? 

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