Paul Cayar
Rob Weiland
Better is not always best
Triggered by this title, Stan Honey made an interesting contribution to the (mainly American) Scuttlebuttdebate about how to increase interest in yacht racing, in which he refers to poker as the best game because it is a fascinating mix of luck and skill. Skilled players win overall, but new players win enough hands to stay interested,
even when playing against the very best players. Most in this debate claim the increasing focus of sailing events
on windward-leeward courses has reduced the element of luck and so the interest in the game. Quite a few then push further, pointing out that to enjoy yacht racing you do not need elements such as, I quote, ‘a coach, a debrief and a bunch of “entitled pros” strutting around the event’, ‘focus should be on the collective of people, not on new shiny boats or elite competition’ and ‘sailing is meant to be recreation, something you do with friends and not a job’. This is of course not a new discussion – the main worry could be
that the debate for decades has not really moved on and that fully crewed yacht racing is not really finding ways to stop its decline. Then again it is not all doom as medium and long-distance offshore racing, often at reduced crew numbers, shows encouraging statistics. The boat type and competition reducing the element of luck most
are, however, in contrast with the above, not following the trend of decline. Of course I then refer to the one-design boat and one-design competition which, to add insult to injury, mostly concentrates on racing windward-leeward courses. Here the key words are fair competition and less cost, aka more
fun for less money. The one-design racing participant base is pretty stable with every now and then a class shrinking and a new one being brought to life, often fishing in the pond of ‘elite owners’ who are seen as tasty promotional bait to catch followers of fashion. The sporting logic of all going into battle with the same weapon
prevails for one-design fans but it is a relatively small group compared to the much larger group favouring free choice of weapon, seemingly accepting that this for most people means at best that chances of racing success are limited to ‘every dog has its day’. At the elite end, every so often creating a new one-off racer, stacking the deck on the edges of the rules certainly is seen as part of the fun. Chasing rated racing luck then often goes hand in hand with active
involvement in the politics of defining the perfect rating system, while at the same time constantly pushing its boundaries. How to rate
34 SEAHORSE
boat types as far apart as, in an analogy with weapons, a blunt axe up to a cruise missile somehow never ceases to fascinate. In all this the importance of skill, luck and money is easily confused.
I am the last person to claim it is easy to design and build a winner, even if money is no object. It could be an interesting concept to also set limits on cost and quality of equipment for rated yacht racing, so combining rating brackets with spending brackets, but I fear this is too complex, far too complex. It will be much simpler to stimulate the elite racer not to mix with
the recreational one, for instance by having enough good-quality events for both categories to stimulate natural separation. Being a realist I fear, however, it will also require clear rules to keep the wolves away from the sheep. In this events and event organisers should then also play a role and not just pass the buck to the competitors and classes. If, as so many claim, there is truth in the pro sailor being the root
of all evil, causing the dwindling number of competitors, then would we gain from separating pros from amateurs and so having pro and amateur starts? Reality is, however, that most events value new shiny boats and elite competition as essential for attracting media attention and sponsorship money and so separation is never seriously attempted. Those arguing that the owners of new shiny boats shall support rules that favour old ones in need of a polish to prop up the numbers are, I fear, in for a long wait. I feel there could be merit in the approach of the IMA and maxi
racing, where over the past decades classes were developed, defined not just by hull length but also by boat type, like classic, cruiser- racer, racer-cruiser and racer. More recently it was decided to link class allocation to a simple
formula based on hull length and rating, to avoid subjective debate. This seems to have potential. The advantage of grouping genuinely similar boats, over just grouping boats within rating brackets, is that competition does not just become fairer but arguably also more inter- esting. Then the boat next to you is not so different from yours – quite similar in the various ratios that determine performance based on displacement, sail area etc. Indeed, this does not accommodate the fan of every dog has its day. You cannot make everybody happy. Other steps can be thought of to keep the competition interesting.
The limits that decide whether a boat is a racer or racer-cruiser etc are unavoidably set arbitrarily and some will play this by building new exactly to a limit. Or build the perfect wolf in sheep’s clothes.
ONEDITION
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