Hardie our best months in the Gorge are July/August but generally we get back on the water from April through October.
Icesurf yesterday it was blowing 50 knots with an air temp of 0 C and a lower wind-chill. I would love to be out windsurfing in these conditions but they are just too dangerous and encouraging people to do so for the sake of a team competition is criminally irresponsible.
Evets the current format of GTC works great for Australia and there is no need to change it, it has achieved all its goals and got lots of people back out on the water enjoying the sport.
Mobydisc maybe it's not a concept that will work internationally in a fair manner and there should be no reason the current participants should be penalised just to keep "Johnny Foreigner" happy.
We'll see if we can get our HAM challenge working better in 2010 and maybe in 2011 there will be room in the GTC for us. Good luck to everyone for the 2010 GTC and apologies for rocking the boat with my suggestions.
Well I've plowed thru this thread twice and I think the suggestion with the most merit is from Decrepit.
Simply put it retains all the good things the GTC has built up and just adds one more
category. It would do the most to level the playing field.
Happy New Year to All
Just to be sure...in no way I want to interfere by asking for changes the Aussies do not want. It's an Aussie site with well functioning Aussie rules and it will for sure be great fun to join the challege regarless of potential rule changes or additional rankings. I only would like to participate in a discussion about the problems one might face when aiming for a more International flavour and support by thinking outside the box without undermining the spirit of the site.
Have a happy New Year and lots of fun while sailing.
Hi MVM,
We're both on the same page
There's no problem in putting up ideas to make the site appeal to a wider audience, if you haven't already guessed, we're really keen to make the site grow. I think that having some fast international riders in the challenge will really spice things up, as it stands it's possible that us Aussies are getting a bit complacent because we're always at the pointy end of the tables...
Discards are a definite possibility for the international cup, if this encourages more participation then I'm all for it.
We had discussed discards before, it was decided that for the Australian comp that discards would mean that people would just not sail through winter, so it discouraged the crazy antics of putting up a tiny sail in those heavy winter storms... but it seems that you guys have even wilder conditions than we get.
So the options for the international cup are:
1) No discards (which brings it into line with the Aussie competition, it might not work for the heavy winter conditions you get)
2) A number of discards, say... um... 4? 6?
3) One month only, so the ranking is based on each team's best month.
What does everyone think?
Think I'm coming in favour of 6 discards. Effectively my idea of 1 month is 11 discards. On reflection this is a bit "thin". 6 months has more depth and is probably more meaningful.
As a matter of interest, if we judged the International cup this way this year, this is what it would look like.
SA SS 8 9 10 16 17 22 = 82
SRM 9 15 16 17 18 20 = 95
PitCrew 9 11 15 24 25 38 = 122
As far as I can make out anyway.
Continuing the list with quick calcs
4. MBayMob 148
5. MMob 154
6. TSS 157
7. Pinnas 163
Makes comp very tight.
I think the discard system has alot of merit for the annual cup.
Nebs,
As for the Australian arm of the challenge, I don't believe teams would on purpose miss sailing certain months because of a discard system, but rather miss sailing due to a month without wind (well maybe in the warmer climes). And as such, the discard system does offer a more level playing field for teams where year round wind is not normal to their geographical region. I don't think it disadvantages teams that sail in a region of consistent year round wind either - they just get more opportunities to improve their year's standing.
On that note I reckon 3 to 4 discards could be seen as an equitable proposition. Whatever the decision, the GPSTC is a fabulous competition to be part of and kudos to you guys in making it such a great event. 2010 is looking bigger than Ben Hur - Keep up the excellent work.
Great discussion about how to make the International comp better! I think the 4-6 discards concept seems like it could work in the northern hemisphere where it can get dangerously cold for a few month of the year (not to mention a shortage of liquefied water!)
For the Aussie comp, it may help to even out the competition a bit if we consider the idea of ONE discard (pretty much everywhere in OZ has a really disastrous no-wind month sometime through the year) but I worry that more than that is somewhat self defeating of one of the main aims of the TC which is to get people motivated to get out on the water more often and sometimes in conditions where they may not be otherwise as motivated. EG: For many years I have pretty much laid off sailing between June and September (brrrr!) but this year I was motivated by the old team spirit to get a better wet suit and get out there. Since I had a few team mates to sail with it turned out to be very enjoyable indeed. I think that is one of the big benefits of the GPS-TC. Lets not loose that.
Like I said in my earlier post "As most places have 4-6 good months of wind why not count your best six monthly results for the Inter Cup and give the teams a reason to participate."
One added question, will it be ok to post using the KA72 Speed reader for results? Not everyone up here has the software to calculate their results whereas KA72 makes it pretty much idiot proof.
I thought 1 discard sounded a great idea, we all see a windless month, etc, then I calculated the results for 2009 with 1 discard assuming the year has ended.
1 change in the top 10 with 5th and 6th changing places. I cannot see this is worth while.
)
)
Sorry about going off the handle about discards and handicaps. I had the wrong end of the stick. Discards sound fine and is fair for everyone. I'm just worried we will have too many rules that make it too complicated and less fun.
As mentioned many times most of us did not enter the challenge to win prizes or enough money to retire on. If someone cheats with the numbers then they are cheating themselves first and foremost. They cheat their teammates secondly and then the wider GTC community.
As we currently run an honour system and from accounts seems to work reasonably well, then hopefully we keep it going. If someone won a cup based on dodgy numbers then what do they achieve? Winning a $20 or so trophy coz thats all its worth to them. However winning the cup based on true performances is worth more than cup's weight in gold. If the winner is found out to have cheated then their infamy would stain them for years.
Maybe use a system like GPSS they want everyone to use the auto upload .........NOT YET
Except that realspeed carn,t do it so you have to do your self and sending files to KA72 is fine if they,re small but some of mine are a bit large 
and have to be split to be emailed. Plus some of us like checking the tracks and making sure that they,re clean and we can marvel at "how good was that run" with a nice cuppa at Daffys ......We need some wind 
Bring on next year with its new challenges and see if someone can stop the SRM
This is a good healthy discussion thread.
I dont think the current Australia based ruleset needs fixing - it aint broken. We all have crappy months. Having said that I'm not really concerned about a single discard though.
For the international cup I say max 4 discards - if we look at the pattern of Northern Hemisphere posts I think that's fair. We all have to wear rubber - some just a little thicker and move covering!!!
My 5c worth [we don't have 2c anymore]!
and have to be split to be emailed. Plus some of us like checking the tracks and making sure that they,re clean and we can marvel at "how good was that run" with a nice cuppa at Daffys ......We need some wind
and have to be split to be emailed. Plus some of us like checking the tracks and making sure that they,re clean and we can marvel at "how good was that run" with a nice cuppa at Daffys ......We need some wind
4 discard months for international cup sounds quite right.
I'm from Finland and planning on getting a team together.
We have 5 months a year when the avarage temperature is 4c (39.2F) and below.
These temperatures are by the sea where it is little bit warmer if the sea is open.
I think 4-5 discard months would be enough for us.
While it's a little chilly at the mo in Euro/USA land this year let us not forget Martin's done 50kn in winter and the Kirby boys have some 47s. One of the advantages of counting the whole year is it evens out things. If it was based on the best 6 months the Pit crew would clean up locally.
2 drops would be OK. Best 10 months count. that is a good balance , best 10 out of 12.
Don't forget that we're considering having different numbers of discards for the national competition (ie, for us it's the Australian comp), vs the international competition.
The discarded months will be shown as grey on the scoring page, to make it clear which ones aren't counted.
At the moment I'm thinking of one discard for the national competition, and four for the international competition.
Nebs,
I think that is spot on. 1 discard for local (Aus) and 4 for international (or 2010)
Run the international for 2010 with 4 discards and then evaluate what would happen if there had been 6 discards.
I see a few others have commented that only 1 local discard does not overly affect the outcomes - to me this seems to validate the premise of allowing a discard.
- J
