Race 04

Seventeen finishers in Race04 made it the biggest of the series so far, and the average elapsed time of 1:06:51 is pretty close to the 1:00:00 I assume when making the handicap estimates. Sheer Force's 3rd place on handicap could have been 2nd place if we were 14 seconds faster, and 1st if we were 29 seconds faster. But we were well clear of 4th, by 1min23.

Sheer Force achieved this good result by being only 1.1 mins slower than the fleet average, compared to 7.8mins last week (9th corrected), and 4.8mins as predicted by the handicap. Sheer Force was placed 13 out of 17 accross the line. We were 12:41 behind the gun-getter Panther (which compares very favourably to the almost 16 minutes that the handicapper expect us to trail her).

Two yachts, Bos Global and Symbiosis finished less than a minute ahead of us (uncorrected), but the yachts behind us (Chloe III, Anthanta, Chancellor & Amon Ra) were well back (9 - 11 minutes) which is why we could hardly see them. Scarlett O'Hara only beat us by just over 2 minutes on the water. The table below shows Division 1 in finishing order.

Results Race04	Elapsed	Outright	Handicap	Diff fm	Mins	Rel to
	Time	Place	Predict	Fleet	behind	Sheer
			Place	Average	winner	Force
PANTHER	0:55:16	1	1	-11.6	0:00:00	0:12:41
X3	0:58:14	2	2	-8.6	0:02:58	0:09:43
LOVE BYTE	0:59:46	3	4	-7.1	0:04:30	0:08:11
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	1:00:24	4	3	-6.4	0:05:08	0:07:33
CADENZA	1:02:59	5	6	-3.9	0:07:43	0:04:58
SPEARHEAD	1:04:15	6	8	-2.6	0:08:59	0:03:42
SUMMERSALT	1:04:26	7	11	-2.4	0:09:10	0:03:31
FARR LAP	1:05:32	8	13	-1.3	0:10:16	0:02:25
SCARLETT O'HARA	1:05:43	9	9	-1.1	0:10:27	0:02:14
DJ2 BOS GLOBAL	1:06:46	10	10	-0.1	0:11:30	0:01:11
SYMBIOSIS	1:07:24	11	12	0.6	0:12:08	0:00:33
TOCCATA	1:07:28	12	5	0.6	0:12:12	0:00:29
SHEER FORCE	1:07:57	13	14	1.1	0:12:41	0:00:00
CHLOE III	1:16:49	14	16	10.0	0:21:33	0:08:52
ANTHANTA VI	1:16:53	15	17	10.0	0:21:37	0:08:56
CHANCELLOR	1:17:18	16	7	10.5	0:22:02	0:09:21
AMON RA	1:19:11	17	15	12.3	0:23:55	0:11:14
	Corrected	Corrected
	Time	Position
PANTHER	1:06:45	9
X3	1:09:53	12
LOVE BYTE	1:05:42	5
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	1:07:04	10
CADENZA	1:08:23	11
SPEARHEAD	1:05:27	4
SUMMERSALT	1:03:50	2
FARR LAP	1:03:35	1
SCARLETT O'HARA	1:06:15	6
DJ2 BOS GLOBAL	1:06:22	8
SYMBIOSIS	1:06:16	7
TOCCATA	1:13:49	15
SHEER FORCE	1:04:04	3
CHLOE III	1:11:00	14
ANTHANTA VI	1:10:19	13
CHANCELLOR	1:18:55	17
AMON RA	1:13:59	16

The handicapper is not doing too well. The elapsed time spread was 23:55, reduced only 36% to 15:20 by the time corrections. Erratic performances made the handicapper look poor. This is highlighted by comparing the actual finish order with the handicap predictions. The eventual handicap winner, Farr Lap, had an exceptional race by crossing the line in 8th place, when it was predicted to be 13th. The eventual 2nd place on corrected times, Summersalt, was 7th outright, but was expected to be 11th. (We were expected to be 14th, but came in 13th.) At the other extreme, Chancellor was expected to cross the line 7th, but somehow only managed 16th. These discrepancies are evident in the above table, and are rather worse than usual, although the handicapper got the top order pretty right.

Race 03

All the yachts must be getting organised - Race 3 had the biggest number of starters & finishers of the series so far. Sheer Force finished 11 minutes ahead of the "closing bell" last night, so the 3 Division 1 yachts Janet said were "just too late" must have been well behind us. These were Chloe III, Anthanta IV and DJ2 Bos Global. I have to say I never saw any of these during the race, except for Bos Global which started with us & fell behind from the outset. According to the handicapper, these yachts should finish 1.3mins behind us, 1.9mins behind us, and 2.8mins ahead of us, so something went wrong for all of them relative to Sheer Force.

Apart from the above three, of course, Sheer Force was the last Division 1 yacht across the line, but the only yacht ahead of us which should have been behind us by the handicapper's prediction was Sundowner V. Sundowner crossed the line just over a minute ahead of us, but we should have been just under a minute ahead of her.

The handicapper didn't have a good race in terms of predicting the finish order. Ft Obsession crossed the line 4 places ahead of her expected 6th, beating even Uplift. Salt Shaker & Chancellor both finished 4 places worse than expected. The corrected times for the finishers were spread out by 10:08 - this compares to the spread of elapsed times of 19:25, giving the handicapper a score of 48% which is typical but not very good.

On corrected times, we would have had to have been a minute faster to have gotten 8th place, and 8mins faster to have taken 1st prize.

The table below shows the Race03 results sorted by outright placings . . .

After Race03	Elapsed	Outright	Handicap	Diff fm	Mins	Rel to
	Time	Place	Predict	Fleet	behind	Sheer
				Average	winner	Force
PANTHER	0:52:30	1	1	0.0	0:00:00	0:19:25
FT OBSESSION	0:56:24	2	6	0.0	0:03:54	0:15:31
UPLIFT	0:56:59	3	2	0.0	0:04:29	0:14:56
OUTLAW	1:01:57	4	3	0.0	0:09:27	0:09:58
YANDOO	1:03:30	5	4	0.0	0:11:00	0:08:25
CADENZA	1:04:49	6	5	0.0	0:12:19	0:07:06
SCARLETT O'HARA	1:05:08	7	10	0.0	0:12:38	0:06:47
SPEARHEAD	1:05:52	8	9	0.0	0:13:22	0:06:03
SUMMERSALT	1:06:24	9	11	0.0	0:13:54	0:05:31
SYMBIOSIS	1:06:50	10	12	0.0	0:14:20	0:05:05
SALT SHAKER	1:07:01	11	7	0.0	0:14:31	0:04:54
CHANCELLOR	1:07:35	12	8	0.0	0:15:05	0:04:20
SUNDOWNER V	1:10:42	13	14	0.0	0:18:12	0:01:13
SHEER FORCE	1:11:55	14	13	0.0	0:19:25	0:00:00
	Corrected	Corrected
	Time	Position
PANTHER	1:02:53	2
FT OBSESSION	1:00:52	1
UPLIFT	1:05:23	3
OUTLAW	1:11:00	14
YANDOO	1:10:41	13
CADENZA	1:10:22	12
SCARLETT O'HARA	1:05:33	4
SPEARHEAD	1:07:07	8
SUMMERSALT	1:06:11	7
SYMBIOSIS	1:05:41	5
SALT SHAKER	1:09:06	10
CHANCELLOR	1:09:37	11
SUNDOWNER V	1:06:04	6
SHEER FORCE	1:08:06	9

It's not possible to compute a point score at this early stage - for one thing, there have been less races than there are drops allowed! Also, I don't know which yachts are entered into the point score. But it is possible to estimate a point score ignoring all drops and just assuming that the handicap list is the same as the block entries (this will not be correct, but I've done it anyway.) The pointscore after Race03 would look like:-

Yacht	Position	Race01	Race02	Race03	Total
UPLIFT	1	2	1	3	6
SPEARHEAD	2	9	5	8	22
SUMMERSALT	2	7	8	7	22
PANTHER	4	3	21	2	26
CADENZA	4	10	6	10	26
TOCCATA	6	4	2	21	27
SCARLETT O'HARA	7	5	21	4	30
SUNDOWNER V	7	21	3	6	30
SYMBIOSIS	9	6	21	5	32
CHLOE III	10	11	10	12	33
ANTHANTA VI	11	21	4	12	37
AMON RA	12	11	9	21	41
FT OBSESSION	13	21	21	1	43
DJ2 BOS GLOBAL	14	11	21	12	44
FARR LAPP	15	21	7	21	49
LOVE BYTE	16	8	21	21	50
SHEER FORCE	17	21	21	9	51
YANDOO	18	21	21	11	53
DISTRACTION	19	21	21	21	63
AKELA	19	21	21	21	63

Uplift are setting a cracking pace by being a placegetter in every race so far. Hopefully the handicapper will respond by doling out some rough justice - no sign of that so far.