First CII World Championship sailed in separate male and female fleets

by Byte Class on 12 Apr 2010 All Byte regattas, and not just the World's, are sailed as an open event. However, as this was an important qualifier, it was decided to split the fleet to avoid any possible chance of a sailor being prejudiced.

This raised the question of who should be declared the World Champion as both male and female have won in the past. The level of sailing was so high in both fleets that declaring one or the other was out of the question. In fact, the elapsed times of the winners of the male and female fleets for each race were examined and an interesting statistic emerged.

In three of the races, the females beat the males around the course by 1, 1 and 2 minutes. In four of the races the males beat the females by 1, 1, 2 and 2 minutes. In the two remaining races the times were the same. After 5 hours and 6 minutes of actual race time by the winners, the total difference was two minutes in the men's favour. An on-the-spot decision was made by the Class, with the approval of all present, to award the Permanent Trophy jointly in 2010!