RMOCR

Forum regular, Mike Dobbs aka "Tornado" is in Miami to sail the RMOCR, but they have quite a lot of trouble with their chartered Tornado
Crewing for Mike is Christopher Stater, former olympic Tornado participant. Chris was born in '52, so he is probably one of the older sailors in the fleet. How about it Rick, ready to go for the "geriatric" price next year as skipper? I volunteer to come over and trim sails for you both up and downwind.

Hope to see Mike sailing on some of the pictures and the video later in the week. He is (as always) posting some great reports on the TornadoCat Yahoo list.

Good luck to the Jasons!!!!!!!!!!!!!

USA is 1 & 2 after three races

Go Ollie and Kelly! Chasing Mitch around the course in two races is great!

Dan

They finaly got some Tornado pictures on the website photo page

Cool! Polgar and Spalteholz uses a mainsail buildt with Maxx cloth in this event. Same as we buildt 6 months ago.
Of course, we dont have the carbon mast..

Wow ... that must be a super tough crowd. How long have Olli and Kelly been on a Tornado?

Uh, First time for them, GO JASONS!

One race left today... Johnny and Charlie have a commanding lead going into the medal round with 4 bullets so far!

Robbie and Henry seem to be struggling in the breezier conditions and are hanging onto 8th place right now. I believe the top 10 continue onto the medal race.

I don't know if rest of the fleet races tommorow or not? Anyone?

Robbie and Henry are also using this material in Zucolli Ulman main.

So, Johnny and Charlie have a 20 point lead going into the medal race. They score it double points and you can't drop the last race. So... if they are DFL they have 20 more points and their closest competitor has 2 more points.... They win by 2!... Outstanding!

What do you think about the split fleet and scoring system?

I dont think ISAF went far enough. The system is still complicated, and the winner can as you say still be declared before moving into the final races (barring equipment failure).

Here in Norway we have tested out a system where the top three boats go into final races. Boat nr. 4 and downwards are decided the usual way, but the top three boats start anew with 0 points. Then they race until one boat has two points, this is the winner. Second and third are decided on points, no races can be dropped. This has worked out quite well, and most understand how the winner is decided. I would have liked to see this system in the olympic classes if they needed to dumb down the sport for TV..

It is going to be very interesting to hear what the sailors themselves, in ALL the Olympic classes, think about the new scoring system after this MOCR is over.

So even if someone dominates for days in an event they should be able to loose in the last final races? I'm not exactly sure how I feel about that. Do we really need a "playoffs" in a week long event where one gear failure could destroy your winning opportunity? It makes me nervous just thinking about it...but then again - perhaps that's the point.

I dont like it either, but then I know how to count points and am comfortable with letting the victor be decided on the results from a standard series.
The change was forced upon sailing becouse the sport was not TV friendly enough. If it is to be "TV friendly", you need to be able to be able to explain who wins easily, and in 15 seconds
I bet what the IOC and their broadcast managers really want, is one race and first to finish is the winner. Or eventually a series of qualifications like for the 100meters sprint, where the finals decides everything. On water judges (instant justice [tm]), electronic checking of OCS and everything. Perhaps that would have been a better model to get more TV coverage? I doubt it. If we want to make it a TV sport, the whole sport should be re-worked in my opinion. I dont want that to happen..

The model I described has been tested at our nationals for the last years, and it's what our national assoc. worked for at the ISAF meeting where the current format was decided. Letting the top three teams from the series start on zero, and race for first, second and third isn't that bad. At least you have more than one chance, and it's easy to explain and add up the points. But as Mary says, it will be interesting to hear what the participants at Miami have to say.

It's blowin' in Miami today!!!!

Thanks Tom!

Yeah, blowing nuts here right now. Our race this morning was cancelled due to high winds (upper 20s). Currently wind is between 22-25kts with gusts of 30. They are starting the medal race at around 2:30.

No Tornado coverage on the videos T2P.tv did

Quote

No Tornado coverage on the videos T2P.tv did

Indeed; utter cack!

Here is what was posted on my Scuttlebutt e-mail this morning. After reading all this, you tell me whether ISAF doesn't know what they are doing or whether they were scamming the IOC to buy time. (Read the editorial piece at the end.)

STRONG WIND FINALE
One race; double points; must count; 18-20 knots of breeze -- that was the last-day mantra for some of the 610 sailors from 40 countries competing in US Sailing's Rolex Miami OCR. Adding the emphasis on today's finale was the new Olympic format, which stipulates that only the top-ten sailors from each class can participate in the Medal Race. Their scores count double toward a total point score that is better when lower.

Although sailors did not have the option of allowing the Medal Race as one of their throwouts, three teams nevertheless had won the right to sit out, as mathematically they had already claimed victory. Those teams were France's current world champions in the Star class Xavier Rohart (Martigues) and Pascal Rambeau; USA's reigning Yngling world champions Sally Barkow, Carrie Howe and Deborah Capozzi; and USA's Olympic silver medalists in Tornado class John Lovell and Charlie Ogletree. The latter two teams sailed today, winning their final Medal Races for good measure. - Media Pro Int'l, www.ussailing.org/Olympics/RolexMiamiOCR

49er (32 boats)
1. Piero Sibello/Gianfranco Sibello, ITA, 34
2. Chris Draper/Simon Hiscocks, GBR, 36
3. Rodion Luka/George Leonchuk, UKR, 67
4. Morgan Larson/ Peter Spaulding, USA, 69

470 Men (21 boats)
1. Nic Asher/Elliot Willis, GBR, 42
2. Benjamin Bonnaud/Romain Bonnaud, FRA, 49
3. Gideon Kliger/Udi Gal, ISR, 52
4. Mikee Anderson-Mitterling/David Hughes, 59

470 Women (16 boats)
1. Ingrid Petitjean/Nadege Douroux, FRA, 33
2. Christina Bassadone/Saskia Clark, GBR, 35
3. Amanda Clark/Sarah Mergenthaler, USA, 51

Finn (25 boats)
1. Rafael Trujillo, Santander, ESP, 32
2. Christopher Cook, Toronto, CAN, 36
3. Jonas Hoegh Christensen, DEN, 42

Laser Full (89 boats)
1. Paul Goodison, Rotherham, GBR, 23
2. Felix Pruvot, Brest, FRA, 42
3. Maciej Grabowski, Gdynia, POL, 49

Laser Radial (47 boats)
1. Anna Tunnicliffe, Plantation, Fla., USA, 54
2. Paige Railey, Clearwater, Fla., USA, 67
3. Jennifer Spalding, Vancouver, CAN, 72

Neil Pryde RS:X Men (39 boards)
1. Nick Dempsey, Weymouth, GBR, 11
2. Nicolas Huguet, Marseille, FRA, 38
3. Ivan Pastor, Santander, ESP, 49

Neil Pryde RS:X Women (20 boards)
1. Bryony Shaw, Weymouth, GBR, 23
2. Marina Alabau, Santander, ESP, 25
3. Lucy Horwood, Wales, GBR, 26

Sonar (6 boats)
1. David Schroeder/Keith Burhans/Bill Mauk, USA, 13
2. Rick Doerr/Ezra Culver/Mike Ross, USA, 15
3. Carwile Leroy/Ali Soylu/Carlos Rodriguez, Fla, USA, 26

Star (69 boats)
1. Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau, FRA, 50
2. Andrew Horton/Brad Nichol, USA, 86
3. George Szabo/Eric Monroe, USA, 94

Tornado (25 boats)
1. John Lovell/Charlie Ogletree, USA, 29
2. Olivier Backes/Paul-Ambroise Sevestre, FRA, 49
3. Revil Xavier/Espagnon Christophe, FRA, 57.00

Yngling (14 boats)
1. Sally Barkow/Deborah Capozzi/Carrie Howe, USA, 15
2. Hannah Swett/Melissa Purdy/Liz Filter, USA, 45
3. Sarah Ayton/Sarah Webb/Victoria Rawlinson, GBR, 47

A TOTAL FARCE
(In a story posted on The Daily Sail subscription website, Paul Brotherton gives us his view of the final race series at the Rolex Miami OCR. Here's an excerpt.)

So Olympic Sailing is going to be more interesting for TV in China as we have a fancy new double points, non discardable, last race, series decider, the thought being that this mechanism would keep everyone focused and excited about the sailing until the last day: No confusion about discards as they are all done, no lack of appearance by the winner as they must sail in this last race. The thought is well intentioned but for gods sake please someone grab those who come up with these 'great' ideas and ram some common sense down their throats.

Let's just take a wild leap in imagination and visualize this ISAF Grade 1 event (the Miami OCR) to be the Olympics in China. The points are not made up they are factual and the following scenarios are all possible. Tornado, Star and Yngling Classes: The last placed boat in the live TV spectacular, yes that's right, dead last across the finish line takes the Gold Medal! What a spectacular performance there from the boat cruising home in last place laughing and performing a victory plod round the track. 49er and RS: X men - this would be a similar scenario where the leader and the second placed boat could finish last and second last and still win Gold and Silver, no matter what else happens. 470 women, Laser Radial and Laser: Last place finisher in the medal race gets the Gold or at worse the Silver. That's eight of the eleven Gold medals up for grabs that could just come over as a total farce. - www.thedailysail.com

Don't know much about it, but do you ever get team/country crews covering the competition for one another? It interests me, because a format that encourages this would allow singlehanded (A cat) sailors and the fans to follow a team event. In motorcycle speedway, there is a team amd points system. The weaker rider may well ride to shut out the threat to his team's win. The teams are usually (in the UK) based on area or town. So how about the Louisiana Pirates vs the Florida Bucanneers? It encourages team training/helping out with skills and tricks, transportation etc, especially for those who are not disposed to actually sail on a boat with another person, but are keen on sailing and comeradery none the less.