Race 06

From aboard Sheer Force, we don't really know (1) which boats broke the start, and (2) which boats turned back & restarted, but it's extraordinary that the RANSA committee boat could not identify at least one boat which did (1) but not (2), giving them an "ocs" (on course start). You have to wonder how hard they tried! It's not as if it's the committee's fault! That said, we were quite close to the start boat and would have certainly obstructed their view to some extent. Which makes me think that, as a matter of tactics, we should not seek to start close to the start boat. This supplements David T's comment that starting away from the crowd can give you better air and certainly less stress.

When you think about it, if it's close, it's really impossible for almost any yacht to be sure whether they've broken the start unless they're called by the start boat. So how could you expect any skipper to admit they've broken the start on an honour system. The more pragmatic tactic would surely be to hide in the crowd, well away from the start boat and follow Nick's advice - "never turn back".

(By the way, Sheer Force jumped the gun on 5 November 2004, and was graded "ocs". In the point score, that's the same as "dns", not a disqualification which cannot be dropped.)

Race06 had 20 finishers in Division 1, the biggest field so far this series. The average elapsed time was 1:03:23. Cadenza won on handicap with a corrected time 6:31 ahead of Sheer Force, with 2nd & 3rd some 6:14 & 4:59 ahead of us. David T's estimate of how much time we lost in turning back was 4-5 minutes, so we might have been close to 3rd if we hadn't broken the start, if we didn't turn back, if we didn't get busted etc. Symbiosis (3rd on handicap) definitely did turn back after the start, but I don't know about Cadenza & Uplift. (From my dim recollections, I suspect Uplift did break the start & did not turn back.) 4 minutes quicker & we would have come 6th, 5 minutes quicker & we would have come 3rd, if noone else's times are altered.

In outright placings, Panther got the gun. Now I definitely saw Panther turn back behind us after the start, but can't be sure that she restarted properly, but you would assume she did. Panther was followed by Uplift (1:08 behind) and Cadenza (4:05 behind). Sheer Force was 16th/20 across the line 19:27mins behind Panther, and was 5.7 mins slower than the fleet average, a more or less "typical" result for us.

The handicapper's worst prediction this week was Symbiosis which finished 7th outright but was expected to finish 14th. Due to the mysteries of time correction factors, this wasn't enough to beat Cadenza on handicap. Cadenza, at 3rd across the line, also finished 4 places ahead of her expected 7th. The unexpected bad performers yesterday were Akela (should be 8th, finished 14th), and Bos Global (should be 11th, came in 15th). In this field, the handicapper expected Sheer Force to finish 17th, and we came in 16th having unexpectedly beaten Distraction (by 1:42 instead of finishing 0:38 behind her). My score for the handicapper this week was 43%, earned by reducing an outright spread of 21:39 to a corrected spread of 12:17. The range of handicapper scores so far is 32-50%. (Last summer it was minus 32% to plus 62%.)

Looking across the 6 races so far, Panther has got the gun 4 times, and no one yacht has won on handicap more than once yet.

The table below lists the Race06 finishers in their outright placings.

Results Race06	Elapsed	Outright	Handicap	Diff fm	Mins	Rel to
	Time	Place	Predict	Fleet	behind	Sheer
			Place	Average	winner	Force
PANTHER	0:50:27	1	1	-13.8	0:00:00	0:19:27
UPLIFT	0:51:35	2	2	-12.7	0:01:08	0:18:19
CADENZA	0:54:32	3	7	-9.7	0:04:05	0:15:22
LOVE BYTE	0:55:44	4	4	-8.5	0:05:17	0:14:10
ESTATE MASTER	0:57:58	5	6	-6.3	0:07:31	0:11:56
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	1:00:01	6	3	-4.2	0:09:34	0:09:53
SYMBIOSIS	1:02:29	7	14	-1.8	0:12:02	0:07:25
TOCCATA	1:02:45	8	5	-1.5	0:12:18	0:07:09
SCARLETT O'HARA	1:05:34	9	10	1.3	0:15:07	0:04:20
SPEARHEAD	1:06:00	10	9	1.8	0:15:33	0:03:54
OUT OF SIGHT	1:06:32	11	15	2.3	0:16:05	0:03:22
FARR LAP	1:08:25	12	13	4.2	0:17:58	0:01:29
PANACEA	1:08:25	13	12	4.2	0:17:58	0:01:29
AKELA	1:09:39	14	8	5.4	0:19:12	0:00:15
DJ2 BOS GLOBAL	1:09:53	15	11	5.6	0:19:26	0:00:01
SHEER FORCE	1:09:54	16	17	5.7	0:19:27	0:00:00
SUNDOWNER V	1:10:20	17	18	6.1	0:19:53	0:00:26
CHLOE III	1:10:59	18	20	6.7	0:20:32	0:01:05
DISTRACTION	1:11:36	19	16	7.4	0:21:09	0:01:42
AMON RA	1:12:06	20	19	7.9	0:21:39	0:02:12
	Corrected	Corrected
	Time	Position
PANTHER	1:01:18	5
UPLIFT	0:59:25	2
CADENZA	0:59:08	1
LOVE BYTE	1:00:56	4
ESTATE MASTER	1:03:11	6
GETAWAY SAILING.COM	1:06:26	12
SYMBIOSIS	1:00:40	3
TOCCATA	1:08:27	18
SCARLETT O'HARA	1:06:22	11
SPEARHEAD	1:07:18	15
OUT OF SIGHT	1:03:56	7
FARR LAP	1:06:48	13
PANACEA	1:07:44	16
AKELA	1:11:25	20
DJ2 BOS GLOBAL	1:09:22	19
SHEER FORCE	1:05:39	9
SUNDOWNER V	1:05:31	8
CHLOE III	1:05:54	10
DISTRACTION	1:08:01	17
AMON RA	1:06:58	14