GBCA Discussion Forum

I believe they were thinking star for Club, and W/L for all others.  I'll ask "someone in charge" to comment.

Anything that planes or foils.

The SIs have been amended:
http://www.gbca.org:80/resources/Documents/2017%20Rum%20Race%20SIs%20Amendment%2020170719.pdf

We will use any existing phrf (or portsmouth conversion) as the initial base. 

As mentioned a few months ago, I have changed all scoring to show Shorthanded instead of SOS-TEX.  This aligns the scoring with the SIs.

For all you lone wolfs out there, please use that class when scoring.

Howdy,

Before the first Rum Race, we are holding the Sailboat Racing 101 course for novice sailors/crew.  As part of that seminar, we will try to place sailors on boats.  This includes veteran sailors on novice boats and novice crew on salty boats.  If you are a Rum Race guru or have a few spots available, please contact me - commodore@gbca.org.

Thanks and see you out there!

-Darin

Everyone who finishes gets a point.  Top 7 get more.


Place
Points
1st
8
2nd
7
3rd
6
4th
5
5th
4
6th
3
7th
2
All Finishers
1

No disagreement?  What kind of hippy progressive club is this?

Well, for all those secretly cursing me, I do have some mitigating factors for you.  If you don't care about the series, your life has only gotten easier as you only need to keep track of the next two boats instead of the next four.  If you are in the top three and don't submit your time, you will get an estimated time based on the other competitors.  If you don't submit your time and your aren't in the top three, well you might actually get counted towards the totals anyway because of the boat-ahead, boat-behind; you lucky bastard.

For those without a fancy phone, just keep track of your finish time.  Come to the club and submit that on our fancy new laptop before the awards are announced.

And for all you lemmings who are ok with this change.. I love ya.

This is the app we used to watch the results on the big screen at the clubhouse after the races.
http://raceqs.com

If you have a GPS logger, then you can upload your gpx tracks as well.  If not, RaceQs is completely optional.  It is just a convenience for you and the club - an easy way to track start and finish times.

The Rum Race Series is quickly approaching, and I would like to have an open discussion about the upcoming changes and the reasoning behind them.

Major Changes:

• 16:30 start time
• Must upload Start/Finish times to be scored for series
• 7 places for series scoring
• 1 point for finishing
• 3 places for race trophies
• First place must record next two finishers in class
• SOS-TEX is now the Shorthanded Class
• Suggest all racers use RaceQs

Start time change.  Depending on who you ask, there is a different suggested start time.  As of now, it seems to be swinging back to "let's start a little later."  The wind is better, it is a little cooler, and the race takes up a little less of the entire day.  Note, we did not change the finish time of 9.  A counter argument for keeping the time earlier has been lights on boats, but https://www.amazon.com/Innovative-Lighting-Portable-Light-Suction/dp/B00108UN9Y

Uploading times.  If you didn't see this coming, you haven't been paying attention   See here:
http://discussion2.gbca.org/index.php/topic,1943.0.html
Additionally, we will allow you to change your results up to the awards.  So, if you notice that your standing is wrong, you can open the webpage back up and verify your time is entered correctly.  You can make these changes up to the time of awards.  You can submit your time for a full 24 hours after the awards, you just can't change your time.  To make a change after the awards, you will need to email me - commodore@gbca.org.  Having supporting evidence will go a long way in that conversation.  The 24 hour time limit for initial upload is for those who may not make the party, but still want to be considered for the overall standings.  Past 24 hours, it will be difficult to monitor, so we limited it to that.

8 places for series.  Uploading times makes this possible.  The more the merrier.  Though, I think 8 is a good limit, since more would make missing a single race problematic.

1 point for finishing.  If you went to the trouble of preparing you boat, finding a crew, forgoing your honey dos, getting the starting line on time, and finishing the course; you deserve something.  Call it a participation prize if you like, but this is more than just showing up.  Everyone gets to see their name in lights!  If you make all the races, you'll get a trophy at the ball.

3 deep for rum.  Since we can assume that the scoring should take less time, we can have a better schedule for announcing results.  This means less "throw down" rum and more prize rum.  Who doesn't like more prizes?

First place records next two finishers.  This is the compromise between the old and new, but I think it is a great one.  This will alleviate the issue with finish times being incorrect at the party for the rum.  Also, in the case of a tie for 2/3/4, first place breaks it. 

We have removed SOS-TEX in favor of a Shorthanded Class.  The SOS-TEX bylaws are great for offshore shorthand racing, but are a bit overkill for a rum race. http://gbca.org/resources/Documents/sos-texbylaws.pdf  I mean, I didn't see many jacklines out last year.  It saddens me a bit to make the change, but I think it makes sense.  Besides the name, nothing changes.

RaceQs.  This app kicks ass.  In addition to being a means to verify your start and finish times, it is fun to watch the fleets at the clubhouse - both during and after the race.  Also, RaceQs uses CST synced with the GPS, which is what you need for both start and finish.

http://www.gbca.org/resources/Documents/2017RumRaceSeriesSailingInstructions.pdf

Your commode-ore,
Darin

You guys can likely use our clubhouse for meeting, and I'll happily add anything to the GBCA site that you'd like.

Congratulations to our winners. 
http://results.gbca.org/series.html?regatta=2017%20Cruzan%20Icicle%20Series

Let me know if you see any issues with the scoring.  That tie-breaker logic is a little tricky.

Hi Dan,

It will never be required.  It will be highly suggested for the Rum Race.

I agree with that, but there is a slight limitation.  You can modify the course only if you recorded your gps at that time and at that location.  So, it would need to be a competitor.  That person would need to race every week, be able to make the changes properly, and last, be able to do it before anyone else, preferably before the awards.

I think it may be difficult to get someone consistently.  I will, however, do my best to grab the first competitor who used RaceQs at the clubhouse, and have them log in, and do it for them, like I did last week.

Also, I am going to ask RaceQs if we can have the course preset.  They likely won't go for it, but we do now have someone in the club who is a friend of the creator, so maybe.  Roscoe, if you are out there.. msg me!

Thank you for the feedback.  Here's hoping everyone is comfortable with the change.

We have changed the results for Icicle Series #3 Spin Non-Sprit.  I just wanted to let everyone know what happened, but in the end, Fleet Captain and Former Fleet Captain both agree on the updated results.

Blue Freers finished first and did not present any results.

Southern Cross finished second, uploaded their results, including boat ahead and boat behind.  They then came to the club and present acting Fleet Officer (myself) with the finish times of the first few boats, though at no time presented themselves as first place.  They also did not submit the results in paper.  They did show me finish times for all the boats in the area, including boats in their class which finished after them.

Fast forward an hour and 4 additional class submissions and a number of position changes after the fact, Southern Bell submits written results for Spin Non-Sprit.  He has crossed third in his class, but first to submit written results.  There are a number of changes to these results after the fact, but Southern Cross is not included in these results.

It is time to start closing the party down, so I announce results, using the results submitted by Southern Belle.

We believe that not giving first place to Southern Cross would be unfair.  They did their best to submit results, and had I been more aware of the situation, they could have easily presented in paper the correct results.

Last, this is the chaos of scoring results using paper and the current SIs.  Had everyone uploaded results, this would have been a non-issue.  I'm not saying there aren't other problems with the electronic system, but this mess would be avoided.

ORC would be great for Rum Races.  The have ways to account for pursuit courses and different wind speeds, if I understand it correctly.  If we ran that extra class this year.. would it be all spinnaker sprit boats? Would any symmetric spin boats bother? 

Of course, we would have to specify the average wind speed before the start, and thereby specify the start times the day of the race.. which is sometimes difficult to do.

To start, I don't think this algorithm would be good for a general purpose recalculation of handicap.  I'll post below what would be more interesting in my opinion.

As for club, we use the algorithm created by Kevin Box that basically tries to move everyone closer to a Median finish time.  Penalize the leaders and gifts to the back of the pack.  For example, here is the current results for this week:
Tuning Factor   
28
Course Length   8.6
Median Time Behind   11.5 min
Median Elapsed   2.01 hr
Boat   Elapsed   Time Behind   Rating   New Rating   Delta
Boat 1   1.92 hr   0.0 min   191   187   -4
Boat 2   1.88 hr   1.6 min   165   161   -4
Boat 3   1.87 hr   3.0 min   150   147   -3
Boat 4   -1.10 hr   3.8 min   49   46   -3
Boat 5   1.88 hr   3.9 min   147   144   -3
Boat 6   1.82 hr   4.5 min   118   115   -3
Boat 7   1.98 hr   6.5 min   173   171   -2
Boat 8   1.86 hr   6.5 min   121   119   -2
Boat 9   2.06 hr   7.8 min   198   197   -1
Boat 10   1.93 hr   8.9 min   133   132   -1
Boat 11   2.30 hr   10.2 min   280   280   0
Boat 12   2.09 hr   10.4 min   191   191   0
Boat 13   2.24 hr   11.2 min   248   248   0
Boat 14   2.13 hr   11.2 min   204   204   0
Boat 15   2.11 hr   12.2 min   187   187   0
Boat 16   2.25 hr   12.8 min   239   239   0
Boat 17   2.27 hr   13.0 min   248   249   1
Boat 18   2.18 hr   14.4 min   201   202   1
Boat 19   2.12 hr   14.6 min   174   175   1
Boat 20   2.25 hr   15.8 min   221   223   2
Boat 21   2.24 hr   16.0 min   216   218   2
Boat 22   2.11 hr   16.3 min   160   162   2
Boat 23   2.25 hr   16.8 min   214   216   2
Boat 24   2.40 hr   16.9 min   274   276   2
Boat 25   2.52 hr   29.2 min   240   247   7
Boat 26   2.68 hr   32.5 min   282   290   8

Generally, this doesn't make sense for people who are racing near their handicap.  They will be punished for being consistent, and gifted for being slow.  New folks will move the median back or forth, and should someone not race during a big movement, they will be inaccurately gifted/penalized the next race.

It is fun though.  You get more variety of winners.  It is just unfortunate that the consistent sailors will always be mid pack.