It’s been observed and commented upon that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to race single handed, particularly for the larger bay races, in the Singlehanded Sailing Society.
This seems to be mostly due to that the SSS is more popular and well attended than ever.
Over the years the singlehanded fleet has remained mostly stable in terms of numbers, but many more have discovered the joys of doublehanding.
Nothing wrong with any of that, and for the most part the vast majority of us respect the SSS tradition of not sailing to aggressively, making allowances for the shorthanded nature of the racing.
That said, lots of boats in the same stretches of water makes for tight crosses and general congestion.
It also seems that the way we sail doublehanded is different from the way we sail singlehanded.
Sailing double handed means you have double the eyes and hands of a singlehanded boat (duh); in practice the maneuverability and reaction times are not linear, but closer to exponential.
With that in mind, the RC is proposing that we change things up a bit for Round the Rocks and separate the singlehanded & double handed starts. The hope is that by spreading out the starts we will have less conflict down the track, as well as less congested starts
In the interest of relieving congestion, we will start the multihulls as one class [Single & Doublhanded] before everyone else.
The plan will be to then start the singlehanded fleet in 3 starts BEFORE the double handed fleet.
That will mean combining some Single Handed Divisions [NOT for scoring, just for the start].
The sequence would be as follows – all times are approximate
10:30 Multi-Hull SH + DH Starts Flag C
10:35 SH Start 1 - Sportboats [including E27’s] Flag K
10:40 SH Start 2 – Combine PHRF <108 + PHRF 111-159 - Flag M
10:45 SH Start 3 - Combine PHRF > 162 + Non-Spin - Flag N
10:50 DH Express 27 Starts Flag D
…etcetera through
11:10 Final DH start, Flag J
We will see how this works.
It's time to try something to give folks a bit more breathing room.
DH
This seems to be mostly due to that the SSS is more popular and well attended than ever.
Over the years the singlehanded fleet has remained mostly stable in terms of numbers, but many more have discovered the joys of doublehanding.
Nothing wrong with any of that, and for the most part the vast majority of us respect the SSS tradition of not sailing to aggressively, making allowances for the shorthanded nature of the racing.
That said, lots of boats in the same stretches of water makes for tight crosses and general congestion.
It also seems that the way we sail doublehanded is different from the way we sail singlehanded.
Sailing double handed means you have double the eyes and hands of a singlehanded boat (duh); in practice the maneuverability and reaction times are not linear, but closer to exponential.
With that in mind, the RC is proposing that we change things up a bit for Round the Rocks and separate the singlehanded & double handed starts. The hope is that by spreading out the starts we will have less conflict down the track, as well as less congested starts
In the interest of relieving congestion, we will start the multihulls as one class [Single & Doublhanded] before everyone else.
The plan will be to then start the singlehanded fleet in 3 starts BEFORE the double handed fleet.
That will mean combining some Single Handed Divisions [NOT for scoring, just for the start].
The sequence would be as follows – all times are approximate
10:30 Multi-Hull SH + DH Starts Flag C
10:35 SH Start 1 - Sportboats [including E27’s] Flag K
10:40 SH Start 2 – Combine PHRF <108 + PHRF 111-159 - Flag M
10:45 SH Start 3 - Combine PHRF > 162 + Non-Spin - Flag N
10:50 DH Express 27 Starts Flag D
…etcetera through
11:10 Final DH start, Flag J
We will see how this works.
It's time to try something to give folks a bit more breathing room.
DH
