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vyc yardsticks


fantom

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Unfortunatley at the club that I sail at they race mono's and cats together and we end up having mono's finishing well behind the cats and winning races on handicap and it is starting to get on my goat !!! ... while it doesn't effect me personally (I am not that good a sailor) I believe that cats should be racing cats and mono's racing mono's. When you see others finishing up to 15 mins in front of the fleet and getting 3rd place I need to ask some questions ... but I need to have my facts right first

any help that you can give will be well and truely appreciated.

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Fantom, It is difficult to Yardstick dinghies and cats accurately for racing together, for a number of reasons:

Elapsed times between designs will vary greatly and therefore one boat may sail in quite a different set of wind/sea conditions to the other.(The slower boat may do a proportunately larger part of his racing in strong breeze than the fast boat who finishes before the sea breeze freshens)It can also occur in reverse.

In areas under strong tidal influence, some competitors get more or less tidal advantage.

Some courses favour certain designs over others. (A tight reaching course will kill most monohulls against cats)

Some designs perform better in certain wind ranges. Yardsticks do not adapt to account for wind strength variation

Some boats may not sail to class rules(eg weight restrictions) which the yardstick is based on, thereby giving them an unfair yardstick advantage.

Above all, yardsticks provide a reasonable way for sailors to compete socially, at club level. At best, yardsticks struggle to provide close competition amongst similarly equipped similar craft. To expect a simple one-size-fits-all number to work in all conditions , fleets and courses is unrealistic. It would help if the fleets were big enough to split cats and dinghies, otherwise in the interest of club harmony, perhaps you can modify the club yardsticks occasionally and spread the prizes around.

The other alternative for those disillusioned with yardstick results is strong one-class racing.

Don't forget that the blokes on the monohulls 15 min behind might be bloody good sailors on very slow designs. The fastest boat doesn't always have the best sailor on board. I've seen boats with a high yardstick whip boats with a low yardstick across the line!!!

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