Rob Weiland
Keep it sane
With about 100 TP52 and IRC52 boats racing worldwide and at max 14 boats racing as class- certified TP52s, I get asked regularly by owners and team managers of the 80-plus non-class boats for ideas to improve their competition. They like the concept of class racing, they admire the 52 Super Series, but they cannot or do not
want to play at that level and are looking for ways to create fair competition without having to constantly upgrade their boats as well as crew to stay in contention. The reader might think that my first observation will be that there
is no realistic alternative to strict class boat-for-boat racing, true to the original idea of the TP52 class. For boat-for-boat racing you need boats that are very even in performance potential and this is, even within one box, not realistic as soon as there is significant age and so design and equipment variation. It is already hard to achieve if there are large budget differences between equal-generation boats but generally budget differences run parallel with age differences. If not we sometimes see remarkable results, certainly where
class and/or rating rules open doors to age allowance of some sort. Pouring money through that door can just do the trick and bring ageing racers back on the podium. However, once the older design is a threat to newer boats this will trigger discussion and frustration about the age allowance concept. The owners of new boats do not accept to be beaten by a 10-year-old yacht and the owner of the 10-year-old one, just having spent a small fortune and tasting the sweet fruit of his investment, will be hard to persuade to reign his horse in a little. Any alternative for boat-for-boat racing relies on the introduction
of a rating system of some sort and scoring on corrected time. If the boats are similar enough then the rating system should be able
38 SEAHORSE
to cope reasonably well, shouldn’t it? So how to create a local series for rated 52 racing? First pick
the rating system of choice. I have a personal favourite but as these systems are just tools the job can be done with most of them. Do not waste too much time arguing, I feel, and if anything just check what is the most used system in your area as unavoidably you end up racing other events than just class events – and there is no bigger waste than having to optimise for several rating systems. Secondly, the big one: what additional rules to install to limit or
box in eligibility for your class and create close racing? Foremost in case of the 52s the boat shall be a monohull with a max boat length of 52ft (15.850m). Do not accept one single millimetre above this. But what other limits, if any? If you set no further limits you will
see that class racing pushes you to invest in upwind performance just to be the best boat off the starting line, and that this over time will push ratings up beyond what is the optimum combination of rating and performance for when the boat is racing in a mixed fleet rather than only against its own new ‘class’. In a fleet of more than seven or eight boats soon the search for
a high upwind mode takes over from best vmg and the boat slides into the W/L specialisation corner, in the end resulting in having to additionally optimise separately for going offshore – or simply avoiding going offshore altogether. Relying on the rating and so corrected time to sort out performance
differences does not work in close combat, it might work offshore but not on a W/L course with at most 2.5-mile legs when the fastest boat sailing in clear air has an (unrated) advantage. So…? The traditional solution is to set a rating limit, making it possible
for older boats using age credits to speed up to the level of the newer boats without the newer boats having the option to increase rating. This at least for a few years works to keep older boats in
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