From: thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu (T. Scott Thompson)
Subject: Re: protests or using the rules
Reply-To: thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Organization: Economics Department, University of Minnesota
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 15:29:44 GMT

steph@cs.uchicago.edu (Stephen Wilson Bailey) writes:

>   >You have got to be kidding.  This would turn sailboat racing into drag
>   >racing.  You might as well take up powerboat racing.  The fact that
>   >sailboat racing is a _tactical_ sport is one of the main attractions for
>   >me.

     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
     [This is my statement - Scott Thompson]

>Many people who have never raced handicapped think this.

Actually, many people who have raced handicapped think this too, me
included.  I have raced in several handicap fleets / classes.  I have
always found the racing to be most interesting in classes where the
handicaps don't matter much because the ratings are similar.

In particular, I have sailed on a boat that got line honors most of
the time but could never correct to anything much better than middle
of fleet.  The boat was an old Santa Cruz 33 that had been
transplanted to a large midwestern lake at the University of
Wisconsin, but whose PHRF rating was based on the large fleet in
California where boats like this can surf the Pacific swells.  We had
to give most of the fleet several minutes even on courses as short as
5 miles.  I enjoyed racing this boat simply because I enjoy most
sailing, and because I could use it to teach some midwestern college
kids about offshore boats.  But it was not good racing (IMHO).

On the other hand, I crewed on a boat in the Chesapeake Bay IOR-B
fleet 1980-81.  The boats were fairly evenly matched.  (As I recall,
the maximum time allowance in the around the buoys racing was never
greater than about 1 or 2 minutes between the highest and lowest rated
boats).  It was great fun and very exciting racing.

>Sailing is also a strategic sport.  There are current and winds and
>seas to consider.  I race handicap, sometimes with huge gulfs between

Of course these things matter enormously in one-design racing too.  I
hope I didn't imply otherwise when I said that tactics were _one_ of
the things that made racing interesting for me.

>In this case, the objective is not to beat the other guy, directly,
>but to sail perfectly around the course.

>When we're racing like this, all the boat to boat rules are
>distracting.  In general the fastest course is not to engage your
>opponent at all, but some handicap racers don't realize that.  These
>are the boats who luff anyone who dares them, and quibble over room at
>the mark.

>It's impressive how much faster you can go if you're not worried about
>attacking your opponent, or how your opponent is going to attack you.
>Maybe there should be two different sets of rules, one which
>discourages offensive tactics and one which permits them.

An interesting idea.  What kinds of changes would you make for the
"non-aggressive" rules?  I am somewhat skeptical that this kind of
thing can be done.  How will you handle the starting line, for
example?

I recall an incident in the Chesapeake IOR fleet.  My skipper had
recently been a witness in a protest that resulted in the DSQ of one
of our rivals.  We had beaten this other boat several times in a row
by not much, and the respective owners had a bit of a feud going.
They beat us at the start of the next race.  We were heavier but
generally had a small boat speed advantage on the wind; they were
lighter, had a small speed advantage cracked off the wind, and could
accelerate faster after tacking.  They proceeded to match race us for
several hours to the weather mark.  They sat on our air the whole way,
even when we footed off to try to get away from them.  They would also
foot off.  We couldn't tack free of them because they could tack
faster.  We even sailed off to the (clearly) unfavored side of the
course for a while hoping to change their minds about the wisdom of
their tactics.  They followed.

This boat, in its determination to beat us, forced both of us to the
back of the fleet.  By the time we rounded the weather mark we were
thoroughly buried.

Now what changes would you make to rule out this kind of "aggressive"
use of tactics?  Notice that they were _not_ using the rules
aggressively since we were rarely close enough for the rules to matter
much.  (I think we could have beat them otherwise! :-)

>Personally, I'm not wild about the colosseum atmosphere of some one
>design or closely rated handicap fleet racing.  My feeling is that if
>you want to go boat to boat, match race.  Combative fleet racing is
>like playing frisbee in a circle of twenty people, with one disk per
>person---you're going to get hit in the head when you're not looking.

I really disagree with this.  Match racing and one-design fleet racing
are completely different both strategically and tactically.  Team
racing is a third kind of beast (and perhaps the most interesting from
a purely tactical standpoint.)  In all three kinds of racing (and in
closedly matched handicap racing) at least I know where I stand.  Good
tactical racing does not result in collisions precisely because the
penalties are severe!  (See the rest of this thread for that issue.)
Most of the time match racing your nearest opponent is not good
one-design racing either.

On the other hand, I can never get these nagging doubts out of my head
about whether or not the handicaps effectively even up the competition
in fleets with a wide range of ratings.
-- 
T. Scott Thompson              email:  thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Department of Economics        phone:  (612) 625-0119
University of Minnesota        fax:    (612) 624-0209
--
T. Scott Thompson              email:  thompson@atlas.socsci.umn.edu
Department of Economics        phone:  (612) 625-0119
University of Minnesota        fax:    (612) 624-0209