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I’ve been asked by the championship committee to get some views on the current fleet allocation system and whether we should be looking at possible alternatives. The main issue is that the current system is subjective and almost impossible to apply a suitable mathematical formula to allocate a fleet before an event starts. This has and will always lead to a little controversy.
As a reminder here is the current guidance:
GOLD – A competitor with aspirations of winning the event. For National/Inland Championships or Grand Prix overall results a competitor would generally have a track record of winning an area championship or a top 10 position in a UK National Championship or a top 5 position in an Inland Championship.
SILVER – An experienced dinghy racer with aspirations of finishing in the top half of the fleet. For National/Inland Championships or Grand Prix overall results the sailor may have been successful at open meeting or area level but has yet to finish in the positions described as a Gold fleet sailor.
BRONZE – A bronze fleet competitor is likely to have a track record of finishing in the bottom half of the fleet or be new to dinghy racing.
I’ll kick off some suggestions:
– Leave as is.
– re-word the above to make the distinctions more clear. Please add suggestions below…
– Assign sailors to fleets (potentially in equal portion) mid regatta, e.g. 3 races in. Sailors could always opt to move up fleets (e.g. to account for abnormal results from breakages etc…), but couldn’t move down.
– Come up with an entirely new system. I personally like the system British Cycling use for racing. – http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/road/article/roadst_Road-Categories_Classifications (I don’t think this exact system would work for amateur dinghy racing, but could be altered to suit. e.g. Cat 4 = new to racing sailor. Cat 3 = Sailor who has amassed a number of points (e.g. open meeting /championship attendances taken across any class at any time). A Cat 3 sailor can never be downgraded to Cat 4. Cat 2 sailor, a few more points and so on… Cat 1,2 and 3 sailors could move between categories. Different levels of points could be awarded depending on the difficulty of event. E.G. championship events could be classed as harder, therefore a finishing place earns more points etc… Again, a rule could be set that if someone wanted to voluntarily go up the categories then fine, but not the other way round.
Discuss…
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Just a sideways thought on this, for what it is worth.
The main emphasis will rightly be on correctly allocating both those who compete reasonably regularly, and those who are either new to the sport or who are new to at least the competitive side of the sport.
However whatever system is adopted there needs to be sufficient flexibility to accommodate the occasional sailor who used to race a very long time ago, and perhaps used to race to a very high standard, but who has done other things in more recent times, but nonetheless makes a very occasional return to serious racing. I am one such; it is around 40 years since I retired from racing, but on my very rare and occasional returns to the race circuit I still race with some seriousness. I would guess that on the present system my proper place, should I enter a major event (and with a decent crew), should be silver, but that is really only a guess.
However I am far from being the only one. I know another regular member of the GP14 cruising fleet who hasn’t raced regularly for decades, but who might very occasionally compete – and in his youth he was a serious contender for a place in the Olympic team in FDs.
And I also know, and respect, another regular in the cruising fraternity who is active in training youth sailors, and who is one of our very fastest helms. Greatly to my surprise, I found him apparently in the bronze fleet at an event last year; I myself would have placed him firmly in the silver.
Oliver
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This seems to be a really hot topic looking at the replies so far! All I can say is that I would assume that any changes to the system would need to be made prior to the ‘End of Season’ Champs (Winters!) as the results count towards next years Grand Prix.
To that end, I would urge all those with issues regarding fleet allocation to air your views on here otherwise there should be no arguement next year. I for one, think it works ok as it is. There will always be descrepancies………speaking as one who never won a silver event in a GP and never questioned when I was promoted to gold.
Cheers
Dave
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I like the “cycling-style” idea. Events could be ranked on who turns up to them, just get the average or sum total category of the sailors competing, so a large national event will gain you more points overall than a small regatta, and it means that you don’t get a situation where someone is promoted to gold because they turned up to an event with next to no boats due to a rubbish forecast.
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I think there is too big a gap between definition of gold / silver. Anyone competing and finishing top 5 at a Grand prix event should probably be Gold. At moment only top 5 inlands / top 10 nationals counts apart from winning an area event. Perhaps remove “aspiration of winning the event” as its a bit irrelevant. Otherwise I think definition OK
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