As the team challenge now has truly gone national and our wind seasons change depending on our location, can the organisers consider a system similar to racing where a team can elect to "drop" their say, two, worst results/months for the year.
There are places that seem to windy all year round ( but just not at the moment!) and other places that have definite seasons where the is wind .. At least this gives an opportunity for teams who don't have the benefit of 12 months of consistent winds to be more competitive. As we've seen in racing the better sailors will still win the events but at least it gives the punters a bit more of a fighting chance!!
This has been raised before, and has had some discussion about it.
Technically it's very easy to do, the issue I have with it is that this system will make it harder for joe average to check up on the scoring system. I put a lot of care and time into the code, but mistakes still happen and I want the system to be totally transparent. As an example of this, last year someone figured out that the scoring system wasn't properly scoring new teams. Adding a "Drop your worst round" would add another level of obfuscation to the numbers, making it harder to figure out if my code is working properly.
That said, I suppose I could make scoring rounds appear in bold or something, that might work.
OK let's have a vote: see the next post.
Proposal: Drop your worst round
Click on THUMBS UP on this post if you want to drop your worst round.
Click on THUMBS DOWN on this post if you want it to stay the same.
I voted yes Nebbs, but at the end of the day it's all for fun, not dropping a month puts more pressure on teams to get out together. As you have said before, the original aim of the challenge was to get people sailing together, and it has 
As for my team, I have got a new team member who I haven't seen and who hasn't sailed for years, and who has now just got a new GT31 and is looking at new gear and is keen as. I also have a couple of other locals waiting in the wings who also haven't sailed for years and are interested, how good is that mate.
I know I have digressed but thanks mate, your web site is just the ducks nuts
Just needs a donation button 
I,d love to drop our worst round (This one) Its a no wind state at the moment with more no wind to come for the rest of the month.
Someone must have squashed a black cat.
I know what you mean Kato, have a look and see when the last 'team' upload there was for the Cockroaches. Just as well there is an archive cause it's a lonnnnnnnng time ago
Lets be cautious what we wish for here. Hardies original concept was TOW(time on water) during winter months in getting the GTC up and running. I know some months its ugly and I speak from experience when the first month, I struggled with only one team mate who couldn't get out (work) and the full season (well near on full season) sharing a GPS. we had some haigly scores, but kept at it, with support and encouragement from afar as FNQ Firiebob and the local crew (I still owe Firie a few shandies for the tips he gave me along the way)
Some of the gun teams we just cant touch for ability, both on water and short notice travel advantages, but its TOW that sees improvements in each member and teams.
Not keen to change it, but am open to bribes and corruption to change my mind
I am fairly new to this but have voted to keep as is. I sympathise with the lack of wind argument for part of the year: for the first 15 years I sailed in the UK where the conditions are crap for most of the year and cold and poor for the rest! (So I think I have experienced the frustration of waiting for wind). But getting out there is a large part of the what I think the GTC encourages and if you can drop months there will be a temptation to drop cold months. I will watch the voting and comments with interest (and a thick steamer to keep me warm!) The conditions in which I sailed Tuesday were not ideal, ok so there was wind but it was gusting 5-30kts and cold. But I managed a new PB or 2. I am really glad I sailed!
and I hope the GTC encourages others to sail year round.
He he... You could have ALL KINDS of gps records - fastest fin fist over 50 metres, fastest leeside over 50 m, fastest rail ride, fastest wally, fastest backwards leeside rail ride on a wally etc etc.
That'd be fun.
You could post them as a "eccentric addenda" to the gps site.
OK in terms of the vote, I vote against it (but can't click thumbs down on my own post) so that leaves the vote tied at 0.
So it's not really clear cut...
The question is, which would make people sail more? Dropping their worst round (so they stay competitive), or not dropping (so they are scared of not posting a competitive number every month)? Yachting scoring systems have been honed over the years so I guess they know what they're doing. Our system is slightly different because we get updates all through the competition, unlike their system where you only see results at the end.
I don't know the answer to this one.
However, I think the scoring is a bit unfair to teams that miss a round (eg FNQ mob). At the moment, it treats a non-posting round as if they have come last... but the system uses the total number of teams in the competition. This would be fine, except that there are a number of teams that haven't posted a session at all this year -- but these teams are still counted to penalise teams like the FNQ mob! To my way of thinking teams like Roo's expat Cowboys (who haven't ever posted a session) shouldn't affect the scoring of teams who do post scores.
The new scoring system would use the number of teams who are actually in this year's competition. So instead of a 180 point penalty it would be a 124 point penalty for not posting.
I was going to quietly change this, but then realised how competitive some people are... so changing things behind your backs might be a bit rude.
FNQ mob, St George SC Speed Team, Connewarre Cremasters - are you happy with this? Other teams?
Coming from Sydney, NSW where the wind has been really ordinary since I bought a GPS, and also coming from a team where our performances have not been up there, I still voted against the proposed change.
Part of this challenge is to open our eyes to where its good to windsurfing and when to go there. So for example I lived on the Gold Coast for a couple of years in the 90s and was mad keen on windsurfing. I read about WA in magazines so I took two months off work (two years annual leave) and went over there in the summer of 97/98. If I knew that windsurfing was good up in central and northern QLD I probably would have gone up there.
For those who have a definate season, be grateful for it. Others have to put up with variable winds almost all the time. Unless you are retired or on the dole in Sydney then it would have been difficult to have been planing on a short board more than 30 days this year. Who can afford to be on the dole in Sydney?
If you are really keen then perhaps when its the off season, you do a trip to somewhere it is windy. From what I have seen so far the ideal situation would be going over to WA in summer and spending winter in FNQ.
Anywhere anytime. Some of the SRM speeds have been achieved by flying 7500km across the country and back. So if you are really keen and willing to chase the wind you get top speeds.
One point tho' Nebbs. Would it not be better to vary the max points depending on the number of teams that posted that month rather "the number of teams who are actually in this year's competition"
ive got an idea for gtc with is all the photos that people have got on there personal details that you can look at them all at once in a photo gallery as well and gtc if any one is intrested and that way you can look where or who the people are sailing at once if you get me ?
I have another idea... the teams that have heaps of wind and post heaps should fly those of us who dont to their location so we can post as well
But I do like the idea of changing the scoring system as per Nebbians idea
I think yoyo may well have the best option so far, this gets my vote ('cos I am sure if a far better option shows itself in the future we could negotiate another change with Nebs)
Another idea, how about a 500m division and you can either drop your NM or 500m depending what your local spot is like
Bundy the idea of the 500 was discussed last year, and discounted after some discussion
I like Yoyo's idea of only counting the number of teams that post that month. That way all the teams that don't post tie for equal place immediately after the bottom poster.
Yep like yoyo idea but make it last teams score plus one for all the teams that didn,t post.Maybe we should delete the teams that havent posted for a whole year?
Yes Kato, that's the idea. If seven teams post, then teams that don't post get eight points for every category, so 8 x 6 = 48 points.
If twenty teams post, then the other teams get 21 x 6 = 126 points.
I think you're hinting at the fact that we don't want to give teams that haven't posted the same score as the team that came last -- so just posting a session each month should have some merit.
This would be better than the current system of:
Points = (however many teams are registered) x 6
Regarding deleting the teams that haven't posted, this is on the cards but requires some database changes so I need to have a good long think about how to do it best.
I think Red's idea is a good one. Accordingly, I voted yes to change, 'cos I think its important to keep peoples' interest in the comp for the long term:
1. Imagine having no wind in your first month ... you'd struggle to keep your spirits up for the remaining 11 months. And the next year you might not join in ... What's good about that? It doesn't encourage participation.
2. Most classes of sailing have the worst results dropped. This keeps more competitors involved right up to the last round. This is also important to keep people coming back in future years.
3. The current system skewes results too far to the areas that have wind every month. There currently isn't a balance in place for a low wind area (who we want to encourage to stay in the competition for the long term).
4. I don't think any of us desperados are going to stay at home when we have the opportunity to sail. We're still gonna get out every month ... you don't know what the next month is going to bring. It may be worse!
5. Dropping a month or two's results doesn't penalise anyone. Everyone gets to to drop their worst month (or two).
My fear isn't that teams won't go sailing during cold months. Its that we may find ourselves with only 6 teams in future years because the others have given up.
I vote for dropping the worst two months over a twelve month period. Or alternatively, drop one month and have a 6 monthly competition.
