GBCA Discussion Forum

Bill Coates Ker 43, Otra Vez was first in class and seventh overall in the Caribbean 600 last week.  The boat has entered every race under the GBCA burgee.  It was a wild start 16 min before our start we broke three batten receptacles off the mast slides fixed the issue and started approx 40 min late.  Great race, very intense with very little sleeping.  Highlight was blasting along between 15-18 kts with masthead code zero and spin staysail for 90 miles covering that leg in 6 hrs. 

http://www.rorc.org/raceresults/2015/rc600-ircov01.html

Next up is Les Voiles in St Barths April 13-18th then the boat will be shipped to Barcelona for the ORC worlds.  This will be the first time an American boat has entered the ORC Worlds in over 10 years. 

"The class failed in this area because every one of those boats, except mine, was set up as a cheater boat.  That is, they were all rule beaters"

Hmmmm!!  Clarification please?  (By the way my "cheater boat" is for sale if anyone wants it!!!)

The basis behind every design is that they will outsail there rating in a given conditiion.  If you look at IRC, HPR or ORC the designers are always trying to get there boats to perform better than the rating says they should.  Doesnt clasify them as cheater boats or cheater designs. 

The downside of the "golf handicap" method or adjusting ratings based upon race results is that you are penalizing boats that are prepared with new sails, good bottoms and that are pushed hard.  Granted they may not be directly penalized but adjusting the competitors that they beat is effectively adjusting the winner. 

Level racing is a lot of fun if you can get the parameters worked out.  Yes in light air a certain boat may win and in heavy air a certain boat may win but all in all it beats sitting there looking at your watch. 

We raced Psyched in virtually every Level 70 event from 1992 till 1999-2000.  I may have a printed copy somewhere of the rules.  It was mostly driven by sail area/disp and disp/L.  Yes the parameters were 69-81 but also extended to 84 to allow Jim Bigalows J36 Pippa Passes to race.   

It was great sailing in its day!  We used to get up to 10-14 boats for the old Level 70 Shootouts!!  3 day event on the bay with only Level 70 boats.  Great times!!!!!

Kevin

I just received an email from LYC that Howard Williams has passed away.  He was icon of sailing and racing on Galveston Bay and paved the way for GBCA in the early years.

http://www.ramseyfuneral.com/obituaries-memorials.aspx?turl=http://hosting-24615.tributes.com/obituary/show/john-howard-williams-101144599

Obviously it's a drone not drouge!!!  Although footage from a drouge might be cool in the Carribean!!!

The Heineken Regatta is definitely one to put on your bucket list.  Unbelievable parties each night at different locations on the island.  Check out this video filmed from a drouge http://vimeo.com/m/88720486.   At about 45 seconds you can follow Otra Vez thru a gybe.  Sat we hit 20.2 kts on the backside of the island.  The boat is definitely capable of 25+ kts.  It's pretty impressive.   

Next up for Otra Vez is St Barths in April then it's off to Newport for the summer. 

I am!!  Might bring Psyched out for that one!!!

I would like to see the clubs up the minimum for a one design class to at least 4 maybe even 5.  Three boats is not enough to have fun racing in a seperate class in my opinion.  Maybe have a sub class for the three one designs within the class.  It would help the RCs be able to have competitive classes.  We had three Melges 24s for the shoe and I did not want to be separated out.  I would rather race against 7-8 PHRF boats then by ourselves with 3. 

Definitely the move towards one design is hurting the PHRF fleets.  Maybe we should have one or two regattas a year that are PHRF only with no one design?   That would be interesting. 

Three entered now!!  If a spin class doesnt form then Mojo will go non spin.

Looking forward to it!!!  I drove Rowdy back in 1987 in this regatta!!

The advantage the asymmetrics have on rum races is when they can carry on the first leg out to "E" on the reverse nights.  Other than that the asym and sym are pretty close on rum races.   I've always thought the rum races are very competitive between the higher rated J22s, J24s and the faster rated boats.  Pretty interesting that we just had a similar discussion about the same sort of thing from the shoe regatta.  For what it is PHRF is not that bad!!

Small boats were 2 of top 4.  My bad.  But very close racing in almost every race.  I think its actually quite impressive on how close it was. 

It's actually pretty close in a lot of races.  I really enjoyed it.  If you click on the race number you can see the detail. 

As far as dirty air your better off in a class with a big phrf margin that 10-15 sec!!  The 122 is almost 2 kts faster than the 24 upwind so your not in dirty air long!!!

The interesting thing is 2 of the top 3 in the phrf fleet were small boats. 

I think for the rum races that's a good idea because of the triangle format.  I think on w/l racing sprit and non sprit boats should not be separated out. 

Does both the first place sprit and the first place non sprit boat need to take next five finishers then??  Class flag is the same so could get confusing for some. 

What about the boats that can carry both sym and asym spinnakers?  There are symetric boats rated to carry asymetric (code zero's) as well. 

There have been a few different versions of the scoring system used to determine the Texas Navy Trophy over the years.  For a couple of years the two overnight races were very poorly attended and in fact HYC canceled theres a couple of years in a row due to lack of interest.  During these years we (GBCA, I was event chairman for a few years when we ran it out of Freeport) developed a new scoring system.  So yes, years ago it was possible to win the Navy Trophy and not compete in the overnights, but if you did not compete in the overnights you were scored Fleet + 1 for that race. 

My concern for the new scoring system is how many "qualified boats" will we have when its all said and done.  It would be interesting to go back and look at the last few years and see how many boats did all three events. 

I think its going to be tough to get the racers to participate in both offshores in back to back weekends, especially since dockage in Galveston is at a premium.