Well done Russ for taking out the second Dorans Road multi-discipline Gunfight (and the 2-sec)!!
Plenty of tactics involved, together with fast and furious 'racing'.
I really think there is potential to use this format for 'weekend racing' that can go toward state title results, as we trialled up at Stanley. Nominate a day, have people pre-enter (here) and then post the results to the GPSTC before midnight. Maybe if we wanted to make it a bit more 'official' we could have it within a set period of time (ie racing between 1-4pm).
I'm thinking we'd need to use a set location for any 'state title' event, but we could always open it up for people to sail wherever they like (at least for practice events, if not state title events)!! For example, if we had included all locations yesterday the results would have looked like this:
Cookie then takes out the 2-sec and the overall!! Well done Cookie!
So as not to include people who were sailing, but not wanting to enter, we'd need to have people pre-enter for their names to be included in the event results.
We could even give bonus points for PB's (maybe 10 points per PB)! That would have pushed Johnny, Barry and Geoff up a few places.
What do you think ...
Or we just stick to the 2-second Gunfight!! 
Nice work Dave! This is a great format for local and state wide friendly type of comps.
At this stage, I feel that for GPS to be included as a legitimate division in WT official events that contribute to an overall result, the format needs to be more structured. Structured, in the idea that an official contributing WT GPS division needs to have a level playing field i.e. All sailors at the same location and the same saling time frame.
We also need to open the discussion on whether we use the 'totalling' system as Dave has shown above, or go with a system similar to what we used at Stanley with each category being treated as though it is an individual race and the placing's for each category totalled to give an overall points score.
From a perspective of calculating results, my personal tendency is to lean towards the second option, simply because it ends up on paper looking like each category is similar to holding an individual race with placing's received accordingly. But I do like both options.
Thanks for posting yesterdays results Dave
I love the gunfights I think they are such a fun format. Yesterday is a classic example of a day when it can be super fun with sailors putting it on the line.
Board, fin, sail, wind, chop, and sailor must all come together on the day. This is sailing at it's best. Mates have a run and laugh pushing each other just fantastic.
Long live the Gunfight
I like you total point score format Dave. I think it works perfect for thinking about all categories' across the day
I was putting it out there to try and stimulate some broader state-wide competition, but agree with Kaleb, for any official WT event, we should nominate a location and time-period.
As far as scoring goes, I'd count the above 'event' as one 'race', not one for each discipline, which would provide effectively five races from the one event. This way, we could have more 'events' to build up the number of 'races' over the season. That way, six of these 'events' might equal the six proper slalom races we have at a single Slalom event. Or to put it another way, the above event would equal one slalom race, points-wise. Sounds complicated, but really quite easy to manage and score.
Anyway, great to get this open for discussion as I'd be happy to go to some nice locations like Swansea for 'events' like this, or even the Tamar or the Derwent and not necessarily the 'speed' spots.
Select to expand quotebuzzy said..
Structured, in the idea that an official contributing WT GPS division needs to have a level playing field i.e. All sailors at the same location and the same saling time frame.
.
Thinking about this further; it may be good to have dates and times set but an open location state wide. This would help sailors that cannot find the time to travel to the other end of the state. It would also mean anyone wishing to chase the ultimate location advantage could do so. The only limit is on the individuals choice of location.
On the other hand if sailors are located all over the state then you are not sailing against the other sailors, but the conditions you are dealt with and the sailors in that immediate location. It doesn't matter how the scores are tallied, you cant get a proper picture of sailor comparisons, which is what competition is all about.
I'm looking at this primarily from the perspective of having GPS as an official contributing discipline for WT, not just local fun comps.
What are peoples thoughts???
Select to expand quoteAUS02 said..
I was putting it out there to try and stimulate some broader state-wide competition, but agree with Kaleb, for any official WT event, we should nominate a location and time-period.
As far as scoring goes, I'd count the above 'event' as one 'race', not one for each discipline, which would provide effectively five races from the one event. This way, we could have more 'events' to build up the number of 'races' over the season. That way, six of these 'events' might equal the six proper slalom races we have at a single Slalom event. Or to put it another way, the above event would equal one slalom race, points-wise. Sounds complicated, but really quite easy to manage and score.
Anyway, great to get this open for discussion as I'd be happy to go to some nice locations like Swansea for 'events' like this, or even the Tamar or the Derwent and not necessarily the 'speed' spots.
This is funny; talking to Dave on the phone about this and posting as well! It's great to get the ideas down and nut this out
LOCATION: Agreed to have an event at a set location.
SCORING:
Option one: Tally all divisions together for an event. The event result would be the equivalent of one slalom race.
Option two: One event would treat each category separately. Each category would be the equivalent of one slalom race.
Including GPS as an equally weighted discipline in the WT schedule requires it to somehow be equally weighted to the current slalom program.
When looking at slalom there is the opportunity to run approx. 4 events or maybe more. Each of these events can have a maximum of 6 races. The placing's from each race are tallied together to give the overall placing for the event. Six slalom races normally take around an hour to an hour and a half to run.
To calculate the overall year result the placing's for each race from every event are added together to give a total. (one race in 5 can be dropped)
If 4 events are held that's 24 races, 4 can be dropped. That gives a total of 20 races going towards the overall tally.
If option one was adopted it would mean that we would need to have around 20 days set aside to be equally weighted against slalom. Not that this is a requirement and there would be no need to have that many. It also means that 3-4 hours of GPS sailing is equal to a 3-6 minute slalom race.
Using option two treats every category in an event as its own individual race and to a further extent recognises the fact that GPS sailing is not just about using a GPS to get a score, but is about six very different and distinct disciplines of sailing running under the banner of 'GPS'. To have option two allows for sailors to directly compare themselves to other competitors and see where they are ranked in an event in each of those distinct disciplines running under the GPS banner.
Option two means that one event would equal 5 races, this means we would only need to run 5 events to have GPS equally weighted to slalom.
The more I think about it the more I see option two as the best format for official WT GPS events. I do, however, really like option one for local play gun fights
I have an assignment due soon so i decided to procrastinate by comparing the 'cumulative points' style used this weekend to the 'regatta' style of scoring used at Stanley.
Points to note:
1.
The Regatta Style is much more inclined to produce dead heats (Steve, Kaleb and Will would have all come second at Dorans using this method)
2.
The cumulative method is severely biased toward the the three longer categories (Alpha, nM and Hour). To show this I took the standard deviation (SD) of each category and found that in every instance the 2sec SD was significantly lower than that of the Alpha, nM and Hour. What this means is that winning the 2sec (SD @ PortSorrel = 1.7 Knots) will effectively only be worth 1/3 to 1/2 as much as winning the nM (SD @ PortSorrel = 5.2 Knots)
If anyone's interested in how the two scoring methods compare here is my working......
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jrYrkcz7pFZYkKR9s3kHso27AKL7Jx9tJJUrRZMzNVI/edit#gid=0
Goes to show you don't need slalom gear out there either. Will did really well on small wave gear
I think yesterday was sure about tactics all right. Tactics to go sailing in all the fronts not wait until they go through and then the wind drops out to nothing. 
Also to even things out a bit with the not so faster competitors you could include distance as well. Then us slower and smaller framed individuals have a chance at making up numbers somewhere. Or some sort of handicap system to make things more even and encourage others to participate. So the faster/more accomplished sailors have to push themselves harder. People tend to not bother after a while if they're no good at it.
For the Team purposes to get Tassie Speed Seekers up on the charts more, on the discipline or disciplines we need to improve on we could run those events for the comp then we could kill 2 birds with one stone (sorry birds).
On Kazza's Concept....what if points were awarded on a 'percentage of PB' basis?
e.g. for 2sec
Perks (PB: 46.15): 40.35 knots...score= 0.874
Kazza (PB: 37.04): 33.08 knots...score= 0.893
while this method would constantly encourage people to better their PBs it doesnt exactly reward perks for setting the state record....and Dave will have to get up pretty damn early if he ever wanted to finish on the distance podium
Nice stuff BFlood! The dead heat scenario, I think was one of Dave's positive points to go with the accumulative format. This said, the more competitors you have the less chance there is of dead heats. It also needs to be noted that we are in that same situation for slalom racing.
There is another option.......Use the accumulated method to come up with the placing's for the event and use the category placing's as points to go towards the overall result for the year.
This way at a GPS event you would see who won each category(these would be the placing points that go towards the overall, with one out of 5 dropped) but the placings for the event would be calculated using the accumulated results.
I'm starting to like this idea
I'm also supportive of Kazzas proposal of including distance, this has a lot of issues with it though and will need further discussion.
Select to expand quoteBFlood said..
On Kazza's Concept....what if points were awarded on a 'percentage of PB' basis?
e.g. for 2sec
Perks (PB: 46.15): 40.35 knots...score= 0.874
Kazza (PB: 37.04): 33.08 knots...score= 0.893
while this method would constantly encourage people to better their PBs it doesnt exactly reward perks for setting the state record....and Dave will have to get up pretty damn early if he ever wanted to finish on the distance podium
YOU HAVE GONE TOOO FAR< STOP IT
Select to expand quotebuzzy said..BFlood said..
On Kazza's Concept....what if points were awarded on a 'percentage of PB' basis?
e.g. for 2sec
Perks (PB: 46.15): 40.35 knots...score= 0.874
Kazza (PB: 37.04): 33.08 knots...score= 0.893
while this method would constantly encourage people to better their PBs it doesnt exactly reward perks for setting the state record....and Dave will have to get up pretty damn early if he ever wanted to finish on the distance podium
YOU HAVE GONE TOOO FAR< STOP IT
I like it, promotes consistency
Also , while us in the lower brackets won't take the titles, there would be more point in participating, and hence joining WT
I'm not sure the including it in the slalom title is correct.
How about something like:
Score = (2s)/A + (5x10)/B + (1 hour)/C + (alpha)/D + (NM)/E + (distance)/F
where
A=30, B=30, C=10, D=20, E=20, F=20 (for open competition)
with double points in a category for a PB.
Factors A,B,C,D,E and F are chosen to make each part contribute a value of about 1 to the overall score.
To encourage more woman and juniors there would be the potential to have various categories (eg open, women, junior (<17) and child (<12)), with appropriate factors A,B,C,D,E and F In each category, allowing for competition within a category and also for all results to be pooled for an overall "handicap" event in addition to the open and category events.
I love this stuff, it's heaps of fun.
I think it has to remain simple and easy to understand.... After all it is fun... Not "sheep stations"
Ben and some others make very valid points around adding up all scores, I think the individual score for each category works a treat...and is fair.
Love the idea of statewide gunfights Dave!
Bring on the gun fights!
Select to expand quotebuzzy said..BFlood said..
On Kazza's Concept....what if points were awarded on a 'percentage of PB' basis?
e.g. for 2sec
Perks (PB: 46.15): 40.35 knots...score= 0.874
Kazza (PB: 37.04): 33.08 knots...score= 0.893
while this method would constantly encourage people to better their PBs it doesnt exactly reward perks for setting the state record....and Dave will have to get up pretty damn early if he ever wanted to finish on the distance podium
YOU HAVE GONE TOOO FAR< STOP IT
I'm not big heading myself but there is a physical difference between men and women obviously, strength, weight, endurance. It's pretty difficult for me to be up there against guys fairly and equally. So my thoughts of handicapping with GPS and slalom would bring competition to a fair game not just for me but also lower ranked sailors that also just want to be up there as well but never have a chance to. Yacht racing is handicapped, car racing, Browns River kayak races do as well. You have like with the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race, the line honour winners (to show the true skill and expertise of sailors up there) and the overall handicap winners. This would really encourage more participants and they'd feel valued as one of the gang! But you couldn't have people wearing weight vests though with the handicap system obviously.(or eating lot's of chocolate cakes 5 days before competition)
Sticking my beak in from the north, and in places where it does not belong - I have to agree that Kazza has a point.
I am sure that a bunch of reasonable, rational human beings could work out the details and then compete on the basis of the established rules.
I used to swim in a club where a person's PB was their own individual target - the person who got closest to their PB on the night won the prize. It was COMPETITIVE because of the handicap system, not despite it.
Play together - play nice.
A handicap suggestion to even things out for Kazza, and other smaller bodies, in the (2sec and 5x speed) categories:
Divide the speed in knots by the weight in kilograms (including any weights worn in addition) then multiply by 80 (this being roughly an ``average weight??).
This would mean anybody less than 80kg would have their number boosted, anyone over would have it decreased. Would depend on people supplying their correct weights, and disclosing additional weights they are wearing).
The weight-adjusted results might just be seen as a secondary table out of interest, rather than the main event.
Just a thought, in case we needed more complexities to consider.
I would favour tallying all divisions together, in doing so you simply get the true value of your effort In each category and overall ,its simple and easy to work out places and no draws. I don't know about points for PBs, for us old guys like myself on the way back down from there best , may not ever get another PB.
Anthony - PB's could update - PRB's - Personal Recent Best - in the same way that golf handicaps do... then the age discrimination would be diminished.
I don't see the need for any form of handicapping and think the keep-it-simple philosophy should prevail. It really doesn't matter what weight you are and the conditions are always changing, which is why we select different boards and sails to suit our sailing level (weight/age/skill) and weather conditions. Kazza showed this at Stanley, beating most of the guys in the racing there, which was a gutsy effort. As far as weight being a factor, can anyone provide examples of this? Perhaps some slight advantage at the highest end of speed sailing in extreme conditions, but not doing 1hrs, NM and alphas (?), and look at all the light guys that go fast, including Perks who has the State Speed Record of 47 knots).
Our GPS's allow us a way to undertake racing in a similar manner to the state title slalom racing we currently undertake, but without the need for setting marks, recording places, etc. We're not in a swimming pool where the conditions are constant (and the best swimmer usually wins) or sailing one-design craft where weight divisions come into play, we're in an Open Development sport, with people buying the latest and faster gear to make their sailing more pleasurable (ie go faster). If you start handicapping the guys at the top making it harder and harder for them to sail 'equally' against each other I think it will quickly lose favor as it's generally those guys driving all of this as they like the 'competition' side of things.
As with any racing, you're racing with the guys (and girls) around you who are at your level. Whether that's near the top of the field, the middle or the bottom, you've got your own great race going on with those placing around you.
Given the results are the results and any handicap system is just a play with the points, can someone attempt to use any of the preferred 'handicap' systems from above and apply it to the state results from Saturday to see how it works out? I think this is where the 'Keep it Simple' philosophy will be highlighted.
An alternative might be to split the racing into divisions (A, B and C), so you're only sailing with others in your division. A bit pointless though, as we're not actually sailing sailor-on-sailor with GPS (ie all in the one race) and when you rank the results from the GPS it'll highlight if someone who beats sailors in, say Division A is entered in and wins Division B - so why should they be entered in Division B? Soon it is just the same ranking as all-in-one racing.
Simply ranking everyone based on their score (whether it be the accumulated points or per division) is straight-forward and should provide incentive for people to 'sail harder' to 'go better'.
That's my view, but I expect a lot of people may still prefer the handicap system, so personally happy to run with that if that's what improves participation in these events.
Yes I think you're right about the weights, Dave. No evidence to prove the advantage. Some light weight guys producing some great results.
In fact most of our top guys are not big guys.
A.Perx, the Little Master, is the Tendulkar of Tassie speedsailing.
Cookie goes fast because he sails very efficiently and is very focused.
I think the way the GTC is set up now is the simplest and best way.
It's interesting to look at other ways of measuring competition, interesting for curiosity more than anything else.
Keeping it simple is always better.
In fact even simpler, is sailing just for the fun, without competition.
I find I enjoy sailing more when fun is my main motivation, not measuring myself against some other guy.
For most of the past 20 years 95% of sailing for me has been completely solo, in the past 10 years I?ve averaged 4-5 days sailing every week, though one or 2 of those will be marginal conditions, and fitness is the motivation, rather than the adrenalin rush.
The last couple of years, sailing at Stanley with other guys has changed the ratio to about 50% sailing solo. I love having a blast with 3 or 4 mates on the water. But the competition side is still just a small part of it.
Competition means different things to different people. We have a bunch of guys (and gal) succeeding at the highest level. That's inspiring to see.
It's interesting to see that attempts to make things competitive for others at different levels but it certainly can get complicated. Depends on how much effort you want to put into that sort of thing.
I'd rather just go for a blast.
Just one word on that Dave, woman can not get the speeds (2 sec) of men, you only have to look at the GPSTC results to see this. I have no idea why, but all I can say is because men are stronger so maybe are able to carry the rig more efficiently and probably because they carry more muscle weight than women. I've noticed some women can get their speeds up there ( eg Karin Jagi) from wearing a weight vest.
Anyway I'll just keep racing against the other girls in the GPSTC, I find like for instance Stanley with the GPS race day I was out to try and improve my rankings in the womens GPSTC not the Tassie Speed Seekers, because I know I have no hope against you guys (your all just too bloody good), unless you hold a GPS day in light wind
At the moment and from the examples given I do not support a handicap system. Not surprising I know
The situation Karen is in is an exception as we don't have any women to create a Womens division. Karen is going to have to adopt the 'Harden the F up' handicap system until we find more female sailors.
A PB handicap system has so many variables. Most people with high PB's have put in a lot of hours and travelling to achieve them. Most high PB's have been earned in exceptional conditions. Everyone has the opportunity to achieve high PB's but only some have chosen to chase them, these people should not be handicapped for their efforts.
Where this can be a problem is that the competition conditions normally do not match the conditions that people gained their high PB's. An example is at Dorans. A typical high 2 sec at Dorans could be between 34 and 38(roughly) Perks has a PB of about 46.15, Russ has a PB of 41.44. AT Dorans Russ is dam hard to match for 2 sec and its the place he sails regularly. Straight away Russ is guaranteed of beating Perks and most other people with a higher 2sec PB simply because he hasn't attended the same speed days as Perks or others.(sorry to use you as the example Russ)
This is not a handicap but an unfair advantage as Doran is near impossible for Perks to get anywhere near his PB or possibly even match Russ at the location.(sorry Perks)
Same goes for Alpha. Izaak has a record he recorded at Lake George, there is no way in hell that Izaak is going to get near that if he goes in a comp held at Dorans. Yet the guys that sail there all the time and gybe really well in the conditions may out gybe him on the day and they may only have 24 knot PB's.
A handicap system based on PB's would make the guys with high PB's not bother attending any events as they would not be competitive in the given conditions and it is these guys that want to compete and want to be competitive.
The only way a PB system would work is if we used the persons PB that is specific to the location the comp is being held. This is not possible!!!
As far as swimming goes, PB's are attained in a stationary body of water, there are a few variables from one pool to another but certainly not the variables there are in windsurfing. Absolutely no comparison between a speed strip in 40 knots and an ocean in 18 knots. Or a flat lake with 35 knots and a churned up estuary with 50 knots.
Yachting handicap is based on the class of vessel. Different scenario all together.
Golfing handicaps are created from, firstly identify the player?s most recent 20 scores, then a whole lot of other stuff then on. Not a sailors one off PB.
Browns river Kayak race handicap is calculated after they run a time trial first up, then they stagger the fleet from slowest to fastest.
Car racing handicap is based on lap times for the track they are racing on, calculated from several trial laps.
I don't think it would be possible or even very productive to send everyone out for an hour then collect all the results and calculate everyone's handicap for each of the categories before we even start an event.
The other thing to remember is all of the examples given are for a race situation, a start to finish one off result. GPS sailing is in a situation that is looking for 5 results(or six) from one set duration, things are a little more complicated in this setting.
A competition is about challenging yourself to rise to the challenge. Unfortunately in Aus we have a big problem with people not being involved in competition because they don't think they are good enough to be at the front. WTF, yes competition is about finding who is the best in the given conditions but it is so much more. It gives you the opportunity to gauge yourself, take stock and find ways to improve and challenge yourself. It doesn't matter if your battling it out with Joe Blow in the Middle of the field or out in front. The most rewarding and inspiring thing is when you finally work out why you arer stuck in the middle of the pack and suddenly leave Joe Blow behind to find someone new to challenge on the way to the top.
I'm always willing to change my view of course! I realise there's more to the handicap systems I've listed, just thought I'd keep it simple.
I must also say the idea about GPS Comps is to get everyone out on the water together, in the same conditions and as BasF said, "Just go for a blast".
This situation will help everyone to improve, have a fun sail and be competitive at the same time, if you want.
Select to expand quotebuzzy said..
The situation Karen is in is an exception as we don't have any women to create a Womens division. Karen is going to have to adopt the 'Harden the F up' handicap system until we find more female sailors.
Nioceeee. I think you may mean accept the situation
I must say it's sailing with you fella's that has helped me with my results. 1 bonus....only 1
The big thing that would improve Gps racing is if the interface on a GT 31 was usable by a 'Techno Neanderthal" like myself. If only Apple could be convinced to design one ( but it would cost 5 times as much). That needs to change ........also having some chance of beating my brother would be good too......
But otherwise, its all fantastic.
Well said Dave..... Kaleb those examples are totally irrelevant and allready proven incorrect... You have me convinced your still not over the whole lake George thing
