A new form of yachting

by Paul Antrobus on 20 Aug 2001 Best Corrected Speed replaces Best Corrected Time
as winning score
Electronic tagging beats the tidal gate - the Fixed Time Race has arrived

More than three hundred years after it organised the world's first open
yacht race, the Royal Thames Yacht Club, oldest yacht club in the British
Isles, continued its pioneering ways with the successful running of a new
way of scoring yacht races. Instead of running its Royal Thames Duke of
York's Trophy race over a fixed distance and recording the time taken by
each yacht, with the prize going to the boat with the best time, the race
was run over a fixed time, with the prize going to the boat which made the
best speed. The concept is called Fixed Time Racing.

'The principal advantage of a Fixed Time Race is probably the simplest and
most mundane - convenience' says Malcolm McKeag, Chief Sailing Officer of
the club who conceived the idea and who with offshore sailors Paul Antrobus
and Tom Richardson of GPS Yachting has developed it into a practical
reality. 'Traditional offshore races start at a given time and then finish
any time between then and midnight - or later. With a fixed time race,
sailors sail the same course as they would with the traditional method, but
finish at a given time however far along the track they have got. Knowing
before they start what time they are going to finish, they can make firm
plans about everything from getting home to getting back to work.'

The new scoring system is made possible by a device known as the GPSY
CourseLogger, an inexpensive tamper-proof 'black box' about the size of a
mobile phone, which each yacht carries throughout the race. The
CourseLogger is an independent gps position fixing and recording device
which continuously tracks the yacht throughout the race. When the data is
downloaded after the race, the organisers can clearly see where each yacht
was on the course at the stated finish time. From this they can work out
how far round the course each yacht advanced during the race: divide those
miles by the time, and you have each yacht's achieved speed. If the
yachts are all the same, the winner is the yacht with the highest speed.
If the yachts are racing under handicap, the speed is divided by the
yacht's handicap figure and the winner is the yacht with the best corrected
speed. Exactly the same handicap can be used as with traditional racing:
normally the yacht's elapsed time is multiplied by a figure, known as the
TCC, TCF or TCM (Time Correction Co-efficient, Factor or Multiplier)
depending on the system, to calculate the corrected time. In a
fixed-time, variable distance race the speed achieved is divided by the
TCC, TCF or TCM. Mathematically, the outcome is exactly the same.

Convenience is not the only benefit of Fixed Time Racing. In many
circumstances the outcome is a fairer race, especially in handicap racing
with boats of greatly varying size and speed. In British waters
especially, the strong currents caused by the ebb and flow of tidal streams
create tidal gates, when and where the stream stops flowing one way and
starts flowing the other. Arrive at the tidal gate before it opens and you
are held up while those behind close up; get through the tidal gate before
it closes, and you are swept forward on the stream while those astern
struggle against it. Yet getting to the tidal gate at the right time is as
often a matter of luck as judgement, and often benefits one size of yacht
at the expense of the others, irrespective of the skill of the sailors on
board each.

On the East Coast, where the pioneering race took place from Ramsgate to
Dover, tidal effects are aggravated by the fact that races often finish at
clubs situated far up river estuaries such as the Medway and the Crouch.
In such a case, the result of the race is inevitably distorted by the tide
of the day. Either the bigger yachts, leading, sweep up river on the flood
and the later, smaller boats finding themselves plugging the ebb with the
breeze dying, or the reverse happens. The big boats fight the ebb, then -
with the breeze holding or even building - the smaller boats sweep in on
the flood to claim all the prizes.

'We are very excited by the possibilities of Fixed Time racing' says
Stephen Gosling, chairman of the East Anglian Offshore Racing Association
'especially for our Sunday races, where getting home in good time is always
a problem, and for our races with up-river finishes. We could well see
many more EAORA races using this system next year.'

For the record, this year's Royal Thames Duke of York's Trophy was sailed
in winds which gusted up to 40 knots and saw David Geaves' winning boat
Fiona VIII hit speeds of up to 17 knots. In such testing conditions, the
little boats would normally not stand a chance, especially as the course
would traditionally finish at the Royal Burnham Yacht Club, far up the
river Crouch, and this year the ebb was due to set in by early afternoon.
Yet by finishing the race at 1500 for every yacht, no matter where on the
course they were, speeds could be compared in an equable manner while
conditions were the same for all boats. So although Geaves' big 'un won
overall with Sensor (D. Chatterton and J. Warren) second, two of the
smallest boats in the race took the next two overall places - Gary
Schaffer's Secrets and Roger Noble's Hydrology. Even using her motor,
Hydrology did not complete the 58-mile passage from Ramsgate to Burnham
until late in the evening. With conventional scoring she would either have
been at the bottom of the results, or would have retired from the race:
either way, a long passage and a roughing-up by the weather with nothing to
show for it. With the race scored on Fixed Time, she has both something to
show for her efforts - and a good reason to go to the prize-giving party in
September.

Fixed Time race scoring will not - nor is it intended to - replace
conventional scoring in every race - but it is here, it works, and it has
been shown to be a viable alternative in offshore races that are often so
distorted by tidal or geographical effects that many sailors, especially in
smaller boats, have until now not bothered to enter.


For more information on the concept of Fixed Time racing contact Malcolm
McKeag, Chief Sailing Officer, Royal Thames Yacht Club, 60 Knightsbridge,
London SW1X 7LF. e-mail malcolm@royalthames.com

For technical information on the GPSY CourseLogging system contact Paul
Antrobus at GPS Yachting