Team GPS Category at Burrum Windfest

Those following Windfest will know there has been a push with course racing in the past few years. It has doubled our time on the water, opened the event to a whole new bunch of windsurfers and formalised something we were already doing at the event.

We have been able to do this because we had developed a very reliable and fun GPS Speed sailing format, which, with a few tweaks has evolved into a format that everyone enjoys.

One of those tweaks was the Rashie Division. A category aimed at rewarding those attending the entire event and those that are consistently competitive across all 5 GPS categories. Rashie Racing has become a cornerstone of the weeks competition.

This year we have been looking at ways to add additional Rashie Divisions and to incorporate team competition. Informal discussion has been had amongst long term participants of the event and that has enabled a new format to be developed.

We see that team speed sailing can lead to self exclusion of team members gps results when playing for the good of the team. We also see the teams with one or 2 more accomplished sailors tending to have an advantage.

So......

To shake things up we are trialling a new Team Rashie format at Burrum this year. The idea is to create a new "inclusive" team gps format with a fairer playing field between teams.

As per previous years, nothing will change on the water. Now however, we will incorporate a new scoring format for a team category when processing the gps data.

How it works.

Each team will have their team members names put into a team draw at the start of the event. The draw will assign a category to each sailor and be random. The category drawn will be the team members team category for the event.

for eg.

draw 1 - mr A - alpha
draw 2 - Mrs C - 5x10
draw 3 - mr x - NM
etc

After the categories are assigned, everyone goes sailing.

Then, at the end of the days session, the gps data is processed and each team will have their categories added together. The highest team score will be the winning team. the winning team is presented with team rashies to wear on the water.

As the event continues, and at the end of each day of competition, the scores are once again tallied providing a running aggregate score.

At the end of the event the team with the highest score is the winning team. we will review this new format prior to the event but wanted to get the word out early to let people planning their trip to the event keep up to date.

We also see a future possible state of origin format progressing from this format where each state nominates 5 sailors to compete alongside the team system outlined above. plenty of opportunities with this.

hope to see you all at Burrum Windfest 2016.

keen to talk through any tweaks/ideas.

Yeah, I found it hard to write a very simple overview of how things will work. I think the important piece of information is that you go sailing like any other day and then we use software to calculate the winning team each day.

I'm still working through the detail. early conversations had us drawing peoples names twice if the team had less than 5 persons. enough draws to make up the 5 categories. my personal view is that probably presents the same issues the team gps stuff already has so I'd like to see it only open to teams that can provide 5 people. that's not decided yet however.

I'm open to discussion.

the other talking point is when a team has more than 5 people. it has been suggested that in say a team of 6 2 of the people would be fighting for the same category and then we take the highest for it to count. say if there was a team of 10 then each category would have 2 people trying for their best result.

or we just limit it to each team puts forward 5 people at the start of the comp and the others are reserves or on the bench so to speak.

at the end of the day, whats important is for everyone to feel included and to remember the solo categories are still all in play. this is just some extra fun to spice things up. when we first introduced the rashie categories we didn't fully understand how popular it would be. it was aimed at being an inclusive category but like most thing the cream have risen to the top.

we hope the team aspect will provide some new challenges for all.

you probably thought about it... would be a good idea to make a draw each day.

If I was there I would hate having to sail for the alpha everyday !!!

Instead of a draw to determine which team sailor provides which category each day, how about the following:
1. a sailor can only contribute to one category each day
2. the best combination of results from 5 team sailors is then chosen each day, for each team
3. where teams have more than 5 sailors, then the top 5 sailors for the day, across the categories, contribute
4. where teams have less than 5 sailors, the unrepresented categories are scored with the worst result plus 1, for the day, for that category

This way:
- you get as broad a representation as possible from each team each day
- teams with large representation are favored, encouraging participation
- teams with less than 5 members can still participate, albeit at a disadvantage

Sounds great but i hope i never draw kms

There are existing teams already associated with the gpsteamchallenge.

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trimmer said..
Sounds great but i hope i never draw kms

I had been thinking of a distance rashie for a down the track idea. those that do both course racing and speed sailing would be the contenders for that one. but as it stands there are no distance categories in the gps divisions and nothing planned for the long term.

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remo81 said..
I think that this team idea is a good one.

However it should be the results of all the team members participating in the event to be added together and divided by the number of team members participating in the comp. An average of the team.

Teams should be taken from the already existing ones from GPSTC.

This will make it harder for Vando to win all the trophies.

yep, that is the exact idea I started putting to people. it was really what got me motivated to start looking at the team aspect.

while bouncing the idea off people it was suggested that the teams with 4-5 top sailors will still have a clear advantage. so from that came the idea of the category assignment and from that the idea of the draw.

the idea with each person having a single category is it will reduce their potential impact compared to averages which allows more than one category to raise their score.

we will still need to limit the amount of people on a team. some of the teams have 10+ people possible going to the event and some only 2 or 3

the draw can be simplified by doing this.

each team member is assigned a number say from 1-5 or whatever number gets confirmed.
then at briefing we draw 5 numbers from a hat and assign those to categories.

that covers every team in 5 draws.

nice user name mark!

I agree with breaking things up. we have gone down that path from the beginning at windfest. we have lots of grades.

there are the primary classes,
open, legends, womens, youth, rashie

and within those classes are divisions
2sec, 5x10, NM, 1hr, alpha.
plus we try and give place getters.

all up there are over 30 places up for grabs. we always give credit for 1st, 2nd & 3rd places at the awards night but the volume of different categories means we can usually only give prizes to first place and on years with a big prize pool include 2nd place prizes as well. So while a few guys do win more than one trophy there is always multiple winners across the board and classes that people are not eligible to compete in.

then there is the course racing. there is at least another 6 trophies up for grabs there.

the team aspect is another category for people to attack and aimed at sharing the trophies and prizes around. whilst we can certainly put forward 2-3 teams everyone believes will be doing well there are people on those teams that may not get first place in a category and now will have a very good chance of taking home a trophy.

it only takes a broken fin, or illness and the team affected is out of the running. there are so many dimensions to the rashie classes.

the idea of the lucky draw is the same. it means the major prizes are achievable for all. there has only been 1 or 2 occasions where sponsored sailors have actually won a major prize.

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Gestalt said..

remo81 said..

Gestalt said..

remo81 said..
I think that this team idea is a good one.

However it should be the results of all the team members participating in the event to be added together and divided by the number of team members participating in the comp. An average of the team.

Teams should be taken from the already existing ones from GPSTC.

This will make it harder for Vando to win all the trophies.

yep, that is the exact idea I started putting to people. it was really what got me motivated to start looking at the team aspect.
while bouncing the idea off people it was suggested that the teams with 4-5 top sailors will still have a clear advantage. so from that came the idea of the category assignment and from that the idea of the draw.
the idea with each person having a single category is it will reduce their potential impact compared to averages which allows more than one category to raise their score.
we will still need to limit the amount of people on a team. some of the teams have 10+ people possible going to the event and some only 2 or 3

Obviously there is someone that will win the comp because they have an advantage over the rest of the field. That advantage is that they are better than the rest. So what is this a handicap event? I think not.

You mentioned before about getting every sailors efforts included. Adding up all the scores and averaging them will have every sailor included. I think that is running with the scope of what you are going to achieve.

You cant try and include everyone and then say that its not fair because some one has an advantage. Just average the scores... It will also eaiser for the score keepers.

yeah I agree.
Also agree this is not a handicapped category. The best will always rise to the top.
We can also still try and introduce a level of equality not achieved in windsurfing currently.

So I think that you are saying that the way to have equality is to include everyone? This is what I would think makes everyone equal.

There for the only way to do this is to have everyones scores count and average them out. Because as we know there is many different skill levels and budgets for gear and such. To have a fair comp everyone must be included. If there is a number drawn out of a hat not all members will be included, and the element of luck is put into the mix. As we all know luck is still out on the course weather someone gets a lucky gust or breaks gear ect. Averaging the scores of all team members competing helps to minimise the luck component whilst including all persons as a contributing members to the team component of the comp.

Like my high school rugby coach use to say 'There is no team drawn out of a hat'. lol

Thanks to everyone for sharing their views.

We will keep looking at the format and talk to everyone during and after the event to improve the idea.

for 2016 here is what we will run with.

Each team can register between 5-6 members.
Team sheets will be provided at registration for teams to record their members. As each member registers they will be automatically assigned a number between 1 and 6.

At briefing we will draw 6 categories from a hat. The categories drawn will be 2sec, 5x10, NM, 1hr, alpha & spare and the order in which the categories are drawn will provide their designated number for the duration of the competition.

On day 1 of competition each team member will contribute to their team score the category assigned them at sign on. Category point values are calculated by multiplying the speed in knots by 1. Except spare which has a points value of 0.

the tallied points will then represent the teams total score. the team with the highest score each day will be awarded the team rashies to wear on the water that day.

On day 2 of competition a rotation occurs where each member moves to the next consecutive number. to complete the rotation the member assigned number 6 will return to number 1. This means each team member now has a new category to gain points for the day.

Again At the end of day 2 scores are tallied and now added to the previous tallied score providing a grand total. Subsequently the team wit h the highest aggregate score is presented the team rashies to wear on the water.

This process continues for each day of competition until the event closes. At the end of the final day of competition, the team with the highest score is the winning team.

Teams with 5 members. - when a member of a team of 5 is assigned a spare, the spare will be dropped and replaced with the unassigned category.



on a side note.

Bigger gpstc teams will need to divide into smaller teams and smaller teams will need to find additional members from the competitor pool. I would suggest in the spirit of the event existing large gpstc teams hold their own random draw to decide final teams.

Please also remember to name your team.

looking forward to the following event in 2017 we are considering these possibilities

1. forming all teams through random draws
2. introducing a gold and silver fleet with day 1 competition deciding a teams ranking
3. simplifying the scoring and using averages.