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Ursus
01-17-2013, 01:31 PM
The SSS board has decided to remove the monohulls (or as the SSS Board would call them: 'boats with insufficient hulls') from the Three Bridge Fiasco overall trophies, see email below.

I must be misunderstanding something, but I thought the Three Bridge Fiasco was designed to have a random outcome and not let the best sailor win?
That's why it is so popular with all types of boats and sailors?

To inject some facts and data into the discussion:
Plot of rating vs. finish time, 2012 3BF, dot colors represent number of hulls
277
The main reason that the fast cats dominated in 2012 was that there was very little wind until shortly before they got going, plus they did not have to pass through the transition zone between old and new wind.
Any fast boat would have had the same advantage, independent of the number of hulls. This is an inherent downside of any a reverse pursuit race, especially on SF Bay.



Greetings, entrants in the 2013 Three Bridge Fiasco!
We are grateful for the participation of all skippers in our race and especially skippers of boats with extra hulls. That said, we are making a few changes this year affecting multihulls and want to tell you ahead of time, in the event it affects your decision to participate in the race and season. We hope it doesnt!
As we looked at the overall results for recent Fiascos, we saw that in the 2010 race the highest-finishing multihull was 12th. Then in the 2011 race, multihulls took four of the top six spots overall including first and second. This could have been an anomaly due to weather, but in last years race (2012) multihulls took the top nine spots overall. Its become clear that having monohulls and multihulls compete for the same overall trophy is mixing apples and oranges, with the potential to produce some disgruntled participants.
Due to this trend and other factors, weve decided to split monohull and multihull race results, creating a new overall trophy for multihulls and keeping the existing perpetual trophies for monohulls.
We wish you the best of luck as you compete for this new dedicated multihull perpetual trophy.
Similarly, we will no longer be scoring multihulls and monohulls together in determining the singlehanded and doublehanded SSS season championships. Since our existing season championship trophies are perpetuals, we would love to work with a few multihull owners on developing new season perpetual trophies for your divisions. Do let us know if you would like to be involved with this project.
As in the past, we will award these additional season trophies at the SSS annual meeting in October.
We have modified the 2013 Standing Sailing Instructions accordingly.
We hope these new perpetual trophies will cause multihull participation in SSS races to continue to increase.
Sincerely,
Your SSS Board

BobJ
01-17-2013, 02:07 PM
The "extra hulls" comment was intended solely to be humorous, and was a take-off on the similarly humorous "Spare Hull" division in the last SH TransPac. Everyone seemed to get a smile out of it and I heard no complaints, including from Cliff.

It sure beats "Rhumbliners" which we've also had before.

I disagree that the 3BF was "designed to have a random outcome." It's designed to be a fun race, so the more trophies the better I would think.

Ursus
01-17-2013, 02:41 PM
The "extra hulls" comment was intended solely to be humorous, and was a take-off on the similarly humorous "Spare Hull" division in the last SH TransPac. Everyone seemed to get a smile out of it and I heard no complaints, including from Cliff.

No offense taken, actually.
What did tick me off about the SSS email was:
- the reasoning behind the decision is both statistically and logically flawed
- nobody talked to BAMA about this



It sure beats "Rhumbliners" which we've also had before.

In the Big Boat Series we did more tacks upwind then the TP52's... We were faster, too;-)



I disagree that the 3BF was "designed to have a random outcome." It's designed to be a fun race, so the more trophies the better I would think.
Taking that thought and the 'apples against oranges' one step further, we would have a trophy for each rating number (or range of ten)... Make sure you vote for the second option in the poll...

Critter
01-18-2013, 02:24 PM
Urs, I'm sure you're aware that almost no club scores monohulls and multihulls together. I think the SSS board (of which I'm no longer a member) finally decided to throw in the towel and join the majority.

I don't know all the history, but I was quite surprised several years ago when BAMA added 24 sec/mi (or some such number) to all multihull ratings. This seemed like the fox not just guarding the henhouse, but wiring the gate open and inviting all the other foxes. When I asked a BAMA member about this, he told me that it was just a case of undoing a fleet-wide reduction in ratings a few years before that. And what was the purpose of that change? Taking the heat off?

There are dubious aspects of the monohull rating process also. But we don't see these large across-the-board changes. I can't see why we monohullers should accept or believe our race results in combined scoring when who knows what ratings the BAMA will give its members next week.

Max

BobJ
01-18-2013, 06:30 PM
On BAMA's own rating page it states that monohulls and multihulls should not be scored together.

This change can be viewed as a take-away (I believe it's not) or an added benefit. SSS is recognizing the long-term participation of multihulls in the 3BF by creating an overall trophy for them. In addition, they are seeking assistance from the multihull community to create a new season perpetual trophy for them. I think that's pretty cool.