How many really don't like one-design racing?

I think most of my opinions about this have been expressed in one way or another by others, but let me add my $0.02.

Briefly (I hope!), I think the source of your perplexity lies in two assumptions that appear to be implied by your comments:
(i) there is only one relevant, or perhaps only one dominant, source of enjoyment for people who race their boats, i.e. the pleasure of competition that compares nothing other than on-the-water sailor performance within a predefined set of parameters.
(ii) strict OD sailing is the only truly ligitimate way to compare sailor performance.

Taking the second point first, many would argue that for most practical purposes, strict OD is really an abstraction that exists relatively rarely (as in the case of factory supplied boats for a particular event), and that in practice the performance differences between different designs within a formula restriction are quite small enough to enable sailor performance to be compared equally well as in many nominally OD fleets, while also having benefits in cost and availability arising from competition between multiple manufacturers.

I think this is a credible argument - it is at least consistent with the growth of Formula racing, but it does itself involve an assumption that may be difficult to prove conclusively. On the other hand, I think there are flaws in the other (first) assumption that are rather more significant...

I don't think anyone who chooses not to race OD would deny that there is any enjoyment to be had in OD racing. It's just that it's not the whole story. There are at least four other sources of enjoyment that I can think of, and any of these could potentially lead someone away from sailing in a particular OD class or towards sailing in an OC fleet:

(i) the pleasure of a sailing a particular design. This includes preferences associated with differing performance, equipment and required sailing skills, for example.
(ii) the pleasure of being able to modify their boat in the way that (a) suits them and (b) they think will produce the best performance on the water. While it may mean nothing to you personally, for many people this is a major component of why they enjoy competing.
(iii) the pleasure of sailing in a bigger fleet than can be provided by OD racing within a reasonable distance.
(iv) the pleasure of sailing against people they consider to provide the best competition available.

Of course the situation is complicated further by the fact that there are likely to be different costs associated with some of these factors. But in any event, I don't think anyone should find it surprising (much less worth criticising) that different people consider each of these factors to be of different importance in their personal choices of how they spend they recreational time.

Not everyone is the same. That's ok. Isn't it?

Mark.

Ok, I take it back - Robi would deny it 🙂

Sorry Scooby,

The Tornado and 49er are OD but they are not SMOD. Your Inter 17 is however SMOD.

There are varying types of OD from strict SMOD where you can only buy approved fittings and sails to SMOD where you have freedom of sailmaker, fittings and placement of, to boats such as the Tornado which can be built by multiple manufactures or even home built, but must fall within the build tolerances.

The Tornado whilst not SMOD, it is almost exclusivley made by Marstrom at present and is considered more OD than most other classes including Hobie due to Marstroms cosistancy of build. The Marstrom is also setting the benchmark for quality of build and performance.

Mary,

This strikes me as do you like Lasagna or do you like Steak? I wouldn't want to settle on either as my only food for the rest of my life.

I love OD racing, like my Lightning. I love Manufacturer OD racing like my Hobie 16 and more recently my Mystere 4.3. I love Portsmouth Racing with big starts and lots of traffic playing with all my friends at once. I love Formula Racing because it gives me the freedom to be a "hot rod" as David (davidn) stated. I love PHRF racing. I enjoy my catamarans. I like my lightning. I enjoy sailing my friends keelboats.

With each type of racing, handicap or OD, and with each type of boat, I get to learn. I learned different lessons at different times. I was lucky in that when I started sailing (Portsmouth on a Hobie 16) I had a number of very good sailors who really helped me along. I sailed Portsmouth with my fleet and Manufacturer OD when I traveled. Sailing a Mystere 4.3 and a Nacra 6.0 and a Bimare have made me a better Hobie 16 sailor than if I had only sailed my Hobie 16. Each boat made me work on different skills. Each kind of fleet I raced in taught me different things.

So, why does it have to be OD or handicap? Why are these two options so often considered as competing opposites rather than complementary formats both of which can be embraced by the sailors and regatta organizers at the same time?

Mary,

I am with you 100%. While open class racing has its place, and I applaud all the efforts that go into collecting and calculating the Portsmouth numbers, I can’t understand why someone would want to sail under a number then boat for boat, if given the choice. (if that is what you are asking)
Yes, we would rather match race one other boat of same design then sail against a hodgepodge of 20 boats. We did it for almost a year on the H20 against Wick Smith. It was a true test of the skipper and crew’s abilities. We were equally skilled and equaled determined to out sail each other. When we hit the beach, we knew who had come out on top that day. We didn’t need to compute some numbers to tell us the outcome.

I don’t mean to stray from the subject, but I do sail in the F18 class, the class is in essence a form of the one-design concept. While the boats are of different manufacturer and may not be identical in everyway, they are where it matters and they share the same number.

While the F18 concept was conceived from elapsed time sailing, they could see that this was not fair racing and thus set out to create a better system. A single rating.
I think the aim of the creation of the F18 rule sums it up; "to provide fair racing for crews of various weights, from 115 to over 150 kgs, through the use of two different sail sizes of jibs and spinnakers, linked to the use of limited corrector weights ;" (I’ll note that this is just one of the reasons)

Tracie

Just to say I understand what you are saying :

Point 5 adn 6 are of course a little over the top. I know that. The base of these points is that I personally, more enjoy being part of a modern class that allows modest development and freedom to tinker about than strickt OD classes.

The other points come down to any ones personal definition of SMOD, OD , formula and Open class. In the main body of my point I tried to use the definition that I think most sailor give to these markers. My own prefered (and different) definitions are :

SMOD : Single manufacturer One desig class - You may only use factory supplied/sold part and nothing else, you may not modify anything to the boat beyond the setup as it came from the factory

OD : One design. Strict specs are give on a number of important parts (hulls, mast etc) forcing very strong similarity while the parts themselfs may be made by any supplier or builders. A good part of the setup is left unspecified and can be modified and changed to sailors wished (sheet system etc). This rather closely resembles are very strickt formula setup.

Formula : A defined box rule forces several important specs to a size that strongly limits realistic performance. All within this box rule goes.

Open Class : Completely free in designing, building and modifying a catamaran. Racing is either first in wins or handicapped.

Wouter

Wait...wait..wait. I think my points are getting mingled with everyone else's.

- I much prefer OD (including formula) racing to handicap racing as I imagine most people do.
- I prefer handicap racing to not racing at all (by a LARGE margin).
- I think you can clearly learn more about tactics and the finer points of sail trim and boat handling sailing in a OD fleet than a handicap fleet.

I'm not saying all handicap fleets are crap and should be banned! Handicap fleets are vital to our sport and I'll continue to compete in them but whenever possible, I'll try to stick with OD (SMOD or MMOD).

Warning: This is going to be a long post.

Since I'm the one who started this thread, I guess I should clarify what I consider to be one-design. And for the purpose of my analysis, I am assuming that all of the crews are of equal sailing ability.

To me, the truest form of one-design is that which makes the combination of boat and crew as closely equal as possible to all the other combination boat/crews, while all using the same platform design. The best way to accomplish this is with multiple manufacturers for the basic boat and with sailors allowed to purchase sails, running rigging and standing rigging from whatever manufacturer they wish. The ability to have sails custom built (flat, medium or full) for the crew weight is the number one most important factor in achieving equality on the race course. The Tornado is the best catamaran example of a perfect one-design, but many monohulls fall into this category.

Next best is single-manufacturer one-design for the basic boat, but that allows you to purchase sails, running rigging, and standing rigging from whatever manufacturer you wish. Again, sails are the great equalizer. Even with (or sometimes especially with) a single manufacturer, there can be considerable differences in boat weights. The only way to compensate for these variations (in addition to crew weight variations) is with the sails.

Third best is single-manufacturer one-design where ALL the components of the boat, including sails, must be purchased from the manufacturer and must be identical. This is not true one-design, in my opinion, because it takes the crew out of the equation. Only the boats and their “engines” are all (theoretically) equal. However, despite its flaws, SMOD seems to be very effective as far as getting one-design racing fleets going. E.g., Hobie in yesteryear and Vanguard at present.

Fourth best is formula racing, and it obviously is working very well. It has helped to revitalize the sailing industry a bit because it gets more manufacturers and designers and sailmakers involved.
However, formula racing has a couple of problems:
One is that most formulas have maximums and minimums, and a bunch of different boats can fit into that formula. For example, the Hobie Wave is an A-Class cat, so I presume that I could sail in an A-Class Regatta if I wanted to. And both the Hobie 16 and the Tornado were originally designed to fit within the old ISAF B-Class, which no longer exists. Both of these cases sound ridiculous, of course, but if all the boats that fit into a certain formula class would show up to race, it would be a very eclectic bunch. Sure, the slower boats probably would not win, and would probably hold up the racing timewise, but they would at least have a venue where they could race boat-for-boat just for fun if they wanted to. It may not be the spirit and intent of the formula class, but it is certainly something that can happen unless they close up the “box” formula.

Another problem with formula is that some designer is always coming up with a newer and faster platform. If the people who buy it dominate the class, either everybody else in the class dumps their boat and buys the new one, or the class dies. (It’s a lot cheaper to buy a new sail, as in a one-design class, than to buy a whole new boat.) When a Formula 20 class was just trying to get off the ground in Europe at least 10 years ago, it immediately died because Morrelli & Melvin came out with the Ventilo. I cant’t remember whether it was Pete or Gino who told me they felt bad about having destroyed the class because their boat was so much faster than all the others in that class. Everybody else just gave up. If everybody in a formula class decides to get the same brand of boat, then you are back to pure one-design. So it is almost like a formula class is just a sort of survival-of-the-fittest contest, leading back to one-design. (Maybe that has not happened in Europe, and that is where the Formula 18 has succeeded very well. But it certainly COULD happen.)

Fifth best is handicap racing, which is a completely different kind of racing. The best that I can say for it is that at least it gets a bunch of boats together going around the same course at the same time, which is more fun than going around a course by yourself and then doing it again to try to improve on the time, which is what record-seekers like Steve Fossett do. There is absolutely nothing wrong with trying to sail as fast as you can and having fun doing it. It eliminates tactics, but at least you still have strategy. And if you really work at shaving minutes and then seconds off your time around the race course, you WILL improve your skills. But for most sailors, I don’t think a ticking clock is as good a motivator or pumps up your adrenalin as much as another sailor right on your hip trying to pass you or the guy 30 feet below and ahead of you whom you might be able to beat if he is going to the wrong end of the finish line.

I disagree

A One Design is where there are VERY TIGHT tolerances on the build, for example a Nth of mm here and there so you end up with a boat built in the USA being as-near-as-damn-it the same as one built in the UK.

The Tornado is a Box rule with additional controls such as 5mm+/- on some hull measurement (allowing mutiple builds). For example there are differing rudder profiles, how can that be "one design". If the Tornado class rules stated (and I have not read them) that :

• The hull must be this shape exactly +- small manufacturing tolerances
• The front beam must be in position X
• the back beam must be in position Y
• The rudder profile must be this
• The centre board profile must be this
• the plates must be made of wood and laminated with glass / carbon
• the sails must be this shape and made from these 'cloths'
• the mast tip mass must be this
• etc, I am sure you get the idea

then the Tornado would be a one design as the hull shapes would be the same, the sail shapes would be the same and the plate shapes would be the same

One design sailing is banded around as the solution everything. It is not (the Dart 18 is disappearing as it has been replaced by a Formula rule that allows freedom - F18).

The laser is about as close to a one design as you can get, but then this becomes a SMOD by definition. I do not actually beleive there are any non SMOD OD's around anymore.

you also state that my inter 17 is a SMOD, well it was when I picked it up from Nacra. I have now made changes to the deck layout etc but it is still an inter 17 as the hulls/plates/sails etc are the same. If I was to enter Performance week I would have to take some of this off the boat and make it less easy to sail. It still rates the same as an Inter 17 under SCHRS as I have only moved or replaced fittings with better ones etc.

My point is that a One design should be an "out of the box" boat. you buy one, you rig it, you tune it and then is goes as fast as every one elses, BUT, because there are some compromises that have been made in either the design or build, it may not be as light as it could be (only an example). If you buy the boat, change loads of fittings, buy your mainsail from Austrialia (because they make fast ones there for example), buy your jib from Sweden becasue these are fast for your weight and buy your kite from the states, is this one Design ? No, the sails are designed differently.

It is (box or otherwise) controled boat and so is a development class.

Taking this a little further.

I buy a Marstrom T and sail it for a while and decide I would like more volume up front (a La Reg White boats of old). I approach Reg, buy the drawings/plugs etc and build a new Tornado. My hunch is correct that a Tornado will be faster with more volume and I clean up totally for the next year, winning the nationals, Euro's and worlds. Now we are just starting a new olly's cycle and so every one wants a Scooby Tornado and Marstrom is now only supplying Carbon Masts etc. So you could buy a Marstrom Tornado, or you could buy a Scooby Tornado - is the tornado a one design class ?

I don't think so, it is a controled development class.

I'm sick at home so I have way to much time on hand to play to irritating know-it on catsailor. After so many hours in bad you get a little grumpy and soooo tired of just lying in bed.

So here is another Gem !

I understand that this is a definition of OD but I also think that regarding the world from that perspective may be deceptive.

The definition is a typical example of where the answer is already defined in the question.

I think the thing we are looking for is the class of boats that makes the combination of boat and crew as closely equal as possible to all the other combination boat/crews. PERIOD

By adding the condition that IT MUST ACHIEVED by using identical platforms is soley itended to exclude a different approach to the problem.

We all know people are not one-design. Mark introduced this point yet again. If you are faced with a group of sailors ranging from 120 kg ot 170 kg than no OD class that currently exists approaches the level of equality that can be had in a formula setup. Simply because a platform will either favour light, medium of heavy crews. In a OD class as you defined it one sailor is noticeably better of then others. In a formula class however ; the platform itself can be modified, just as the sails, to compensate for the NOT OD-ness of the crews. Examples like open 18 ft skiffs versus 49-ers show the same trend.

And yes when taking two crews of say 150 kg weight than two different formula boats WILL be less equal than one single boat as OD BUT when realizing that crews in a class can range from 125 kg to 175 kg we can easily see how two different formula boats over a full range of crew can be more equal then in single ID platform that favours one particular weight over all others.

So the questions is do we what large fleets of equal racing or just OD classes that favour a narrow band of crews and say to all other crews that need to suck it up ?

What is fair ? How do we defined equality ? How do we defined competitive racing ? As two boat being exactly the same when sailing by identical crews or when two different crews (but with same skill) sailing two designs optimized for them are equal in the end result ?

That is a pretty cold assesment of the Formula classes. Only one step from Open class racing. I think you will find that Formula racing is alot higher on the ladder. At least about SMOD when taking into account that we don't all measure in right at the optimal weight for that particular OD class. I MUCH rather sail at 15 kg overweight (or underweight) in the F18 class than the Hobie 16 class.

Than of course we are overlooking the setup of the various classes. Spinnaker equipped classes tend to be alot less sensitive to crew weights than non-spi classes. All this talk of OD being better is so one-sided. Significant factors are simply ignored in favour of some "perfect world" formulations. I dare say that F18 racing is alot more equal than most OD sailors think and it appears to be alot more equal than mind experiments do suggest.

How is that a problem ? All races have a cut of time. Everybody must finish 15 minutes after the first finisher or be scored (last finisher + 1 ) points. All boats still on the course can than abandon the race and group back for the next start. It is also alot more fair to unlucky sailors caught in a hole as they don't get a very large hit by being very last.

Fair racing is all about a crew not being able to buy or design an unfair advantage over others. When someone decides he is happy to put himself at an unfair DISadvantage than that doesn't translated in UNfair racing does it. He choose to do so nobody forced him and when he gets tired of it can again choose and back up to equality.

So what is the problem here ? It is just an invented problem to smack the Formula classes with.

Is that so ? We hear this all the time. How often did it exactly happen ? And more importantly how did such a thing impact on the class as whole. Even here the record is mixed. F20 / ventillo => class died, A-cat / Flyer => class grew.

Who are we kidding here. Is the problem that every few years racers need to buy new boats ? Is that it ? Name me one OD class where the true racers DON'T buy a new boat every two years. So what is different ? In case with formula classes, pretty much all improvements in sails and boards can be retro fitted to older designs. New sail design ? Get that oen for you old boat as well. To expensive ? You really think that your 3 year old sails are competitive even in classes like H16 ?

Sure it can happen that the design comes out with a faster boat but how likely is this really AND how do you know that the impact on the class is not a positive one.

Has anybody ever thought about the fact that F18 class grows because alot of still competitive boats are available on the second hand market at decent prices. Allow more people to get into to game at their budget. Happened in the A-cat class when all the top sailors moved to the Flyer. Therefor is it such a occurance really always a bad thing ?

One can have argue that with succes, however than one also has to argue that OD classes are only in an eternal survival contest always leading back to extinction. At least the formula classes are always garanteed to survive in one form or another. The may go OD like the Tornado has done and then at a later time diversify again like the 18ft skiffs did after a period of OD. All the time keeping a finger on the wrist of the sailors and adapting to the times and going with the flow.

As a system the Formula setup is actually quite a smart setup.

Wouter

Mary,

I suggest that your argument regarding onedesign racing isn't the true issue here.

It has been my experience in the last 10 years that the 'new' people to cat racing are older, with family &c, and are purchasing used boats best fitting their various wants, with racing being less than at the top of the list. Include me in that... I have a 22 year old NACRA 18sq, for Chrissake.

I'd certainly not want to tell these people they can't come and play so I'll live with Portsmouth. Once we get these people absolutely hooked on racing, then we can worry about everyone getting some flavor of similar boat.

And even then, it would depend on the boat - I'd certainly not want to go back to sailing an H16 even if that was the only thing going. Ick. I guess I, and apparently lots of other people, aren't purists.

sea ya
tami
ps. Do the 'leaner' guys complain about PHRF like we complain about Portsmouth?

It's even worse! They have several different handicap systems they can use. I'm helping our local club develop a 'golf' handicap system (their terminology - not mine) where the skipper and boat have a handicap based on their performance amonst the fleet. This will only work at the club level.

Oh yeah, they sure do. I grew up sailing on leaners and I crew regularly on a Melges 24, and PHRF sucked then as much then as it does now. The best and worst thing about PHRF is the numbers are set regionaly which creates all kinds of problems. Makes for some interesting gossip and email threads though.

Monohull sailors and multihull sailors IMHO are the same people with the same interests, it's just the platform we do it on is a little different. And yes, they have the same OD vs. PHRF (open) debate that we do.

"will work at the club level", are you sure that's how you wanted to phrase it 🙂

Virtually all the open regattas that I have attended give 5 or more boats of the same class separate scoring. So then if you would rather race open or class (one design or formula) becomes a non issue. I have never heard any of the sailors that made up a class complain about racing against each other rather than being a part of the open fleet. For my outlook, if there is one boat in my class that is who I race against and the finish within the open fleet is not that important. Open racing does give you a lot more time on the water that wouldn't happen if you just do class racing.

Gordon Isco

For many years I sailed at a club that used a "back calculated " handicap system to ascertain, What they considered was the best way to judge the "best sailor" in a very mixed fleet (fleets of various cats as well as multiple mono hulls). They used this system over the duration of the racing season as well as for regattas of four or more races.
The way it worked was that the first race was sailed and from the finishing times of all boats their "handicap" for the next race was calculated on the basis of the times needed individually for all the boats to have finished equal first (on handicap). This "handicap was then applied for the second race and the resulting positions counted for the overall regatta (the first race was used as the starting point and didn't count in the overall results). Similarly the same "back calculated" handicap system would then be applied for the resulting times of the second race ie their handicaps were adjusted as if they would all have finished "equal" at the finish (on handicap) and their "new" handicap would then be applied to the third race. This "handicapping would continue for the duration of the regatta/ season.
Very accurate and fair comparisons between different boats, sailors, and sailing skills were obtained from this system and it is the only system that I have seen where there was never any argument between competitors about the final results being "unfairly" influenced by, conditions, quality of respective boats, difference in speed and/or performance of boat, weights, etc.
It was a system that automatically took into account ALL the variations between different boats, speed, weights etc, and put every one on "a level playing field". At times different sailors tried to "rort" the system by "sand bagging" for one or more races to greatly improve their handicap, but in so doing they may have been able to win ONE race as a result but with their results from their "sand bagged" race/s and the considerable resulting handicap penalty resuling from their erraticly improved "winning" race, they always suffered appropriately. The best way to sail under this system was to always sail "to your best" for the first race , and then try to sail every following race with improvement ie sailing up to and better than your previous race's handicap (ie consistency). The calculations necesarry to incorporate this system were simple and the results were always available within approx' 30 minutes after the final boat crossed the finish line.
It is a system that proved itself over a long period of time and required no measuring, no boat formulations, no class yardsticks etc, all a sailor had to do was to turn up with their boat and they knew that for any regatta or series at that club, they could race on an equal footing with ANY other class of boat and sailor. It just worked to perfection for fleet numbers from as little as 12 boats up to regattas with numbers into the hundreds. OD, one off's or even for a "bath tub" with sails made no difference, the system worked and worked well.
This is the primary system used to calculate the "yardstick" for different classes of boats, the difference at this club was that they used it as an ongoing "living" handicap system that was continuously "updated" and didn't stagnate (like a yardstick can) for the entire season/s and unlike a yardstick, would not loose it relevence to the average sailors actually competing week in week out.

This sounds interesting. So even if you had a fleet of one-design boats in the series or the regatta, are you saying that they also raced on this handicap system rather than boat for boat? I have always thought that some type of performance handicapping might be the answer to keeping sailors from getting discouraged in local fleets that are always dominated by the same people.

Guess I shouldn't have clicked on the open forum. Spent most of the night(dial up!)reading, and trying to grasp all the hot racer opinions being bandied about on this thread. I think it was educational, but now I think I must have just bought a crummy obsolete boat. Tami, or was it Tamy, says "ick" when refering to it . Well I think I'll avoid the races and just continue to have fun zipping around on my '83 Hobie 16. I say zip cause the other two boats in my life were a Comet and a twelve ton 35'double ended wooden gaff rigged cutter .

As I was reading this post I was wondering, is there some sort of reversed handicap used by anyone? By this I mean that the extra time added to each sailor because of handicap is given at the beginning of the race, and not the end.

Say theres a regatta thats X distance long, between an H16, a Tornado, and a Blade F16. The distance is caulculated before the race and instead of everyone starting at the same time, the H16 starts first. Then the Blade f16 start as soon as its horn is sounded when Y time has passed, then the Tornado after Z time has passed. That way you could have a first-to-finish race between these 3 said boats.

Im not very experieced here, sailed alot on a laser so didnt have the problems described here, but I think this might work to some extent. The main problem would be the hassle of finding all the numbers before the race, and you loose the pre-race battles between boats which I find to be very important.

Thats completely correct Mary. If there was a "fleet" of 8 Hobie 16's (or 18's or 14's for that matter) starting in an overall fleet of 80 boats of various size and performances, the Hobies would race equally with all the other "classes" with their regatta results calculated using the "back calculated" handicap system together with everyone else, thereby featuring in the overal positions, BUT as they were of OD they could also have their own class race within the regatta as their class result would be "over the line first".
At this club many classes of cats conducted their state heats there during the course of the clubs normal racing just so they could get their state championship results and still compete in a mixed regatta as well, so of like two for the price of one.

some clubs here us the "different starting time" for different boats based on their yardstick or handicap. but it is only used once a year as a novelty/fun race as the rsults that are obtained are anything but realistic. There have been times in such races where a small 10' dingy has started first due to its rather "slow" rating and yet it has still finished before the faster Tornado (starting time based on its yardstick/handicap) has even started.
That sort of "delay" starts in yacht racing never seems to work.

Hey scooby,

The tolerances allowed in the Tornado class are to allow for amature builders, other manufatures and varience between boats off different age. Even SMOD are never EXACTLY the same and I am sure they have tolerances too as it is not possible to make evey boat exactly the same.

I helped the ITA measurer set up and test measure before Athens and you will be suprised with how fine these tolerances are when you measure the boats.

Here is some interesting reading for you from the ITA web site. It explains some of the differences and advantages of one-design over one manufacture.

The Tornado was designed in the autumn of 1967 by Rodney March from England, with help from Terry Pierce, and Reg White, specifically for the purpose of being the new Olympic Catamaran, which was to be selected by the IYRU in an Olympic Catamaran Trials. The boat was developed mainly in Brightlingsea, England.

International Status was granted to the Tornado as a result of its outright winning of the IYRU Trials held in England. The next step, adding the Catamaran event to the Olympic program, occurred two years later, with the result that the first Catamaran event, sailed in 1976 in Canada, was sailed in the Tornado. The Tornado is an outstanding example of a class that was designed specifically for Olympic competition that has become a successful International class on its own merits.

The Tornado has since remained unchallenged as the ultimate one-design catamaran. With its modern, stylish rigging and sleek lines the Tornado is quick to catch the eye of any water-drawn on-looker as it speeds across harbors, lakes, and oceans in over 30 countries around the world. With its ability to reach speeds of 15-18 knots upwind and downwind, and 33+ knots reaching, the Tornado is truly the purists' speed machine.

CREW WEIGHT
The one-design (as opposed to one-manufacturer) Class Rules have allowed the Tornado Class to insure close racing from sailing like-designs, but with the ability to alter the shape of the sails within the approved sailplan to control power. This has allowed teams to be competitive regardless of weight combination or stature, an important feature of the Tornado that has survived the years and the change to the new rig.

The problem often associated with one-manufacturer classes, where in addition to the boats the sails are also strictly controlled, is that a standard weight/height combination dominates. With the ability to alter the sail shape within the Tornado sailplan has resulted in a class where minimum crew weight is not necessary; in the final results in a Tornado event, it is common to have teams whose total weight varies by 40 kg to appear in the top 10.

MATERIALS
Another advantage of the one-design concept with multiple manufactures is the freedom to allow competitors to build such things as rudders and boards, and to do their own rigging. This insures increased strength and extended competitive life of components as modern materials become available at lower cost. An example of this; from a one-manufacturer class rudder replacement can become costly if the materials chosen by the manufacturer years ago cannot be upgraded. Over the years, the Tornado class rules have changed to allow for material improvements in many of the details, especially sails, to take advantage of improvements.

Rigging also has high replacement cost. If a manufacturer chooses lower-grade materials to keep the "new purchase price" low in order to be competitive in the retail market place, it is the active competitor who pays extra by having to constantly replace the lower-grade components. A fine example of this is the traveler on modern catamarans; on the Tornado, modern technology has lead to a dramatic decrease in replacement costs, as parts can be mixed from a variety of sources.

LIFE EXPECTANCY
The natural technological evolution of materials, plus the push for the sailors for stronger boats at the same weights, has allowed the Tornado Class to increase its competitive life dramatically since the late ‘80’s. While having a reputation as fragile and short-lived back in the 70's, the modern Tornados have racing lives of 7-10 years. Many of the world's Tornado sailors, who actively race in other catamarans, know well that the modern production boats have top-level racing lives of 1-3 years.

One of the major causes for the low resale value of the one-manufacturer boats is that they are often supplied at major events. This saves the competitor no money, since they have to have the boats to qualify to get to the top events. These supplied boats, which are then sold cheaply by the manufacturer after the event, actually hurt the most active racers by lowering the resale values of their won boats.

The rules of the Tornado class have also resulted in sails that have long racing lives, the result of the competition among sailmakers for quality and durability. One-manufacturer sails, on the other hand, are mass produced at the cheapest price that the manufacturer is willing to gamble with, from materials that are not the quality of open classes. The result again is that the racing competitor pays more, buying more sails to stay on top.

CLASS RULES
The Tornado Class Rules have evolved and been developed over many years and now ensure strict attention to all details relating to the performance of the boat. Rules are modified as needed and wanted by the sailors themselves, to allow the Tornado to advance with modern technology yet always considering the long-term effectiveness of the changes.

The Olympic status of the Tornado has brought some of the finest sailors from all over the world to the class. With over 22 nations regularly attending the annual World and Continental championships, and with the medals won at the Olympics going to sailors from all the continents where the boat is active, the Tornado has a world-wide level of racing matched only by a very small handfull of other classes.

The Class Rules allow the boats to progress with technology and let modern materials such as carbon fiber, nomex, epoxy resins, and high-grade aluminum to be used as they fall in price and can be incorporated into the boat, resulting in constantly improving quality. This helps resale values and enables the Tornado to maintain its marque as the ultimate speed machine; to this day, closing in on 40 years after it birth, the Tornado is still the fastest one-design production boat in the world.

For the immediate future, the class is concerned with ways to bring in more modern, lighter materials while maintaining the one-design nature of the boat, and done in such a way that the purchase price of a new boat can be contained.

The Tornado: in its first Olympics, it was the fastest and most spectacular of the Olympic classes. Now, after the turn of the century, it is still that boat, the fastest, most exciting,most spectacular of the Olympic boats.

Stephen,
Thanks for the great explanation of what pure one-design, controlled by a class association, is all about.

Mary, So glad that you complemented Stephen from a serious racing sailor's perspective. As a rookie, I learned more about racing classes from his explanation of the success of the Tornado than all the other posts combined. I am also sold on the need to find a crew and a Tornado so I can shoot for that 30 knot reach. ralph on the Hudson

Like every promoter the T class lied about 33 knots speed of the tornado.

The fastest time ON A REACH that was every recorded on a Tornado either during speed trails in England OR the Bacardi Blast at Bermuda (1997 world championship fun race on a rest day) was a striking 23,48 knots !. All measurements were taken over a 500 yard or 500 mtr distance.

If you want you can see some MPEG footage of the event here : http://www.acay.com.au/~gonzo/tornado.mpeg

Here the commentator clearly inform us that the German crew won this fun event by taking 12.53 second to cover the distance at average speed of 27 LANDmiles/hour (otherwise he would have said knots).

I'm sure those 33 knots (38 landmiles/hour) claim of the Tornado is just a typo that has now been repeated for ohhh 8 years now. You would expect that someone would take the time to correct this error.

Don't believe much of what promotors say and research the matter. Often the claims a very easily disproved.

By very careful when any class assures that their beach catamarans reaches past 25 knot or speeds up beyond 25 knots on ANY course. With the extensive use of GPS units we now know that beach cats don't perform past 20 knots in a consistant way. Meaning under their own power. Maybe in a few very special cases you surf of a large wave right at the best time and hits 15 - 30 knots for 1 or 2 seconds but that is it.

Also all classes are extremely handy in building up their own superiority by double speak. Example : Tornado stays competitive as a platform for 6 a 7 years, of course (they say), all other stay that only some 3 years. This naturally leads to the "fact" that tornado's are cheaper to race, right ? Wrong ! The same tornado costs as good as TWICE as much to buy new than a good portion of all others. So in fact the end result may be that the two classes over a period of 6 years are about as expensive.

And so on and so on.

There are only two classes that I know off that don't venture into these shady area's and give it too you raw and exact.

The rest well, lets just say that they have or feel a need to play themselfs up beyond realistic proportions.

Wouter

wouter,
gps instantanious speed readings are not as accurate as you would think. And I don't think that a 500m average distance has anything to do with the instantanious speeds that the boats can achieve. So the truth is probably somewhere between 33knots and 25 knots.

If you _really_ want to measure instantanious speed then you need a radar gun. We bought one for our regatta and anyone wishing to test their speed is welcome.
Sandbanks Open Aug 6-7 2005. Prince Edward County, Ontario, Canada. 1 hour drive west of CORK - Kingston.
http://www.westlakesailingclub.com

Pitchy,

>>gps instantanious speed readings are not as accurate as you would think.

I didn't use instantanious GPS speed readings.

>>And I don't think that a 500m average distance has anything to do with the instantanious speeds that the boats can achieve.

-1- you think or do you know ?
-2- If I say that may cat attained 50 knots speed on a reach, what do you read into that ? Instantanious speed or sustained speed ?
-3- A series of instantanious speed will lead to higher 500 mtr. speeds. It is also the official speed measuring way.
-4- Bacaradi run used a stretch of 500 feet, taking a Tornado 12.53 seconds to cover. When does a measurement become instantanious speed ?

>>So the truth is probably somewhere between 33knots and 25 knots.

What is truth ? Please define truth in this respect.

What ever your answer to the above question, the claims made suggest something that ISN'T true, namely sustained speeds above 23 knots for more than 13 seconds.

>>If you _really_ want to measure instantanious speed then you need a radar gun.

I don't agree GPS units can be dependable. Set the unit to poll every sec or so and read out the track. Plot the travelled distance per read-out look for a segment that shows only very small swings in travelled distance over a few samples and calculated the average speed from that. Errors in GPS read-out show themselfs as large swings in travelled distance from sample to sample. Engineers and educated persons will recognize this as the statistical defined DEVIATION. Look for a data series with a small deviation component.

Besides who said that a radar gun is accurate ? I know how that works and it you point that thing at the mast and it swings forward you get the same offsets as GPS unit can have.

>>We bought one for our regatta and anyone wishing to test their speed is welcome.

Sounds like a good test. I'll be glad to hear the results.

Wouter

It is hard for me to fathom a T over 28 kn in 40kn of wind.
The highest speed I have known the Tornado to go was at CORK '75.
A 40kn storm hit, when the the fleet got to the reaching leg.
The peak of the storm must have hit, when the leaders got to
the jibe mark. At this mark a couple boats broke their side stays,
one of them was Reg White who released the other stays, so as not
to damage the boat from the mast.
Notary was there on "Salt Water Wine", Zutec on "Twister" & Smyth.
Anyway a Canadian destroyer radared the fleet at 28kn average.
That's 33mph average, at that speed the boat was no longer in
the water it went like a skipping stone from crest to crest 9'(3m).
It was amazing the Tornado could skip the crest, and soar over the trough.
It was sheer madness, with some poet license here, it seemed like
we zoomed over 5 crests in ten seconds, and the wind would
calm down to 2 or 3 crests in 10 seconds a la bucking bronco,
and then accelerate again.
I will never forget the thrill, not to mention wondering will
the wind ever slow up. I recall a Tornado to windward of us,
and counting it cartwheeling/rotating about it's mast 3 1/2 times, and
the crew later righted the boat, unassisted?
Anyway, I would call it somewhere between sailing/flying & holy ____.
Great wind & waves,
Chris

Hi Mary:

I think your thoughts are the same of most people that really enjoy developing their skills. There's no better way than to see your skills against someone else on the same boat. Indeed, even Rick and yourself recommended in your catamaran sailing book that you experiment starts, etc. with an identical boat to make sure you are maximized. Not only that it's better, I think it's more fun because it limits all the variables. KISS.

Wyatt

Wouter