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	View 2005 year end rankings View 2004 year end rankings Against All Odds - Peter Duncan with help from Jim Graham I've been hearing some chatter for some time now that there are a few people who don't come to Nationals and other big regattas because they don't think it is fun to trail around the back of the fleet getting their brains beat out by the hot shots with hot boats decorated with the latest power vangs, jib sticks and other gadgets. Well now we have some alternatives, just for you! In recent years we have reinvigorated the Challenger fleet to give an alternative to running with the big dogs in the President's fleet. Those who have opted for the Challenger fleet have found plenty of competition. This year was no exception. The conversation at the party is just as rich and exciting at the front of the Challenger fleet as it is in the President's fleet. I've even heard people making it their dream quest to get their names on the Harwood Challenge Trophy in the next year or two. Of course with several teams making that claim it is going to be quite a dog fight for top honors. It is great to see this sort of rivalry developing and more people having fun as they come to the major regattas. If we get enough people interested in a second fleet, we can add these to other major regattas such as Mid-Atlantics and Mid-Winters. Some have suggested we need a third fleet for "classic Albacores"- simply rigged boats such as what dominated the class 30 years ago. I've heard others suggest we need a fourth fleet for seniors or for those who only race occasionally and just want to show up and do their best. While it would be great if we had enough different types of sailors to make several fleets, today the reality is that there are two or three in each category. So taking inspiration from Jim and Susan Graham and a club they used to sail with in Kenya, we instituted a handicap system and the Against All Odds award. With this system you are racing against your previous best. It completely levels the playing field as the handicap is developed from your actual performance with whatever equipment you have. You can have a 40 year old boat with original sails or the most up to date Albacore money can buy, and you have an equal chance of winning this award. A world champion or a beginner is just as likely to win this award, as it all depends on who does the best at outperforming their personal average performance. So here is how the system works. To develop the handicaps, data on the amount of time it takes for each boat to complete a race is collected over a series of races (In time this grows to a huge database spanning several years and improving in accuracy as the amount of data increases). For each race the average time to complete the race is computed and the fleet average time is divided by the time for each boat. A boat finishing exactly in the average time will get a handicap of 1.00 or 100%. Boats which finish in less time than the average will get a handicap greater than 100%. Slower boats get handicaps less than 100%. For a race that lasts 100 minutes, the difference between two handicaps is an estimate of the amount of time the faster boat must "give" to the slower boat. If every boat sailed exactly their handicap, all would be tied on corrected time. There is a bit of additional statistical work (such as eliminating extreme outliers in a data set) that is done to assure that the handicaps fairly represent the performance of individual sailors. Once the handicaps are developed they can be used in any race to give each boat a "corrected" finishing time. The corrected time is simply the elapsed finishing time multiplied by the handicap factor (a boat with a handicap of 95% that actually sailed a course in 65 minutes would be given a corrected time of 61.75 minutes). Once all boat have a corrected time for a race, the corrected times are sorted in order and places awarded based on corrected time. Doing this for each race in a series gives an alternative way to score an event and was the basis for awarding the Against All Odds trophy at US Nationals (full results with handicaps used are elsewhere in this issue). New boats can be added to this system by initially assigning them a handicap based on how they perform against "known helmsmen" with an established handicap. In time we will collect data and have handicaps for each sailor who participates in major regattas. This data can be shared and used on a local level to extend the handicap concept to club racing. It can also provide a system for establishing a national ranking system if that is desirable. Other benefits of the system are it allows a participant to see in quantifiable terms how much they must improve to equal the fastest boats in the fleet or measure how much they have improved from one year to the next. A list of handicaps based on data through the end of each year is posted on the web. These will be used for calculating handicap scores for events in the following year. Jim and Susan report that this system was the basis for all racing at their club in Kenya and it contributed to a great competition and learning. The challenge was on at every race to see not only who was fastest (first across the line), but also who showed the most improvement against their average performance as indicated by their handicap. Of course besting your handicap is a two-sided sword, as those who beat their handicap are rewarded with a higher handicap when the data is periodically recalculated. This levels the field again and the challenge is on to beat your previous best. Winning the Against All Odds award several years in a row would be a monumental accomplishment. For those who have not tried a major regatta, come on out. We'll assign you a handicap to get you started and begin to collect data to fit you into the mix. With you as a benchmark, you can use a similar system back at your home club to calibrate other sailors against the entire fleet. Jim and I hope this system brings new and interesting challenges to the US fleet. Please give us your feedback as we develop and refine it in coming seasons. Hopefully this adds a new dimension of fun to sailing your Albacore.
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