Friday, April 1, 2011

DELTA 31

Boat: DELTA 31

Builder: Albin Marine

Designer: Peter Norlin

More: DELTA 31 Specifications

News:

Skandia Life Cowes Week entries are at record levels


Author: Peta Stuart-Hunt

With only three weeks to go, the entries for this year's Skandia Life Cowes Week regatta are at their highest ever in the history of the event - standing at 918 as we write and growing daily - and the organisers confidently expect this number to rise to over 1000 by the start on Saturday 4th August.

  • Amongst the 20 Class 0 entries are Skandia Life Leopard, Cap Gemini (previously 'Rothmans' and a competitor in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race) and Australia II ­ most famous as the first challenger to wrest the America's Cup from the Americans in 1983.
  • At least two of the 12 Metres that are here for the America's Cup Jubilee, will be racing in Class II.
  • Because of the rating band changes this year, Class III will be the biggest with 55+ boats.
  • The One Design class entries are very positive this year with, for example, 73 X-boats, 41 Hunter 707s, 15 Farr 40s and six confirmed Thames Barges.

IRM CLASSES DROPPED

Skandia Life Cowes Week has dropped the two IRM classes whose starts were originally scheduled in the Notice of Race.

Race Director Stuart Quarrie explains: "Following results from the Round the Island Race, the majority of IRM owners realised that their places would have been higher under IRC. A number of them have put in requests to us at the Cowes Combined Clubs to race under both certificates."

Because of this, the IRM rated boats will still race under their own rules (including crew weigh-ins) as well as in the appropriate CHS divisions. It is anticipated that there will be at least 25 boats taking part in the Week with both certificates.

Entries will be eligible not only to win prizes for IRM results but also for the major trophies available under IRC e.g. The Queen's Cup, The Britannia Cup and The New York Yacht Club Challenge Trophy.

RESULTS SERVICE PREPARES FOR BUSIEST EVER SKANDIA LIFE COWES WEEK

Final checks are being made to the Skandia Life Cowes Week results service in readiness for the first day of racing on Saturday 4th August. This year the system has to handle an anticipated 8000 finishers over the 8-day event - the largest number ever. With the prospect of over 1000 boats racing on each day, the task of converting around 17,000 sail numbers, finishing times, protest results, declarations, retirements and disqualifications into a set of results that is instantly available around the world, is a challenging one for the team from Next Generation Results.

"The aim is to have each boat's result processed and onto display screens, results boards and the Internet before they get ashore - although typically we easily achieve much better than that" says Andrew Rayner, Operations Director of Next Generation Results who are providing the results service for the tenth consecutive year.

The infrastructure that makes this possible is complex. A network of facsimile machines and digital cellular communication links, ensure that hand-written records of the finishers reach the results room just minutes after boats have crossed the finishing lines. From there, it is a matter of seconds before the corrected and elapsed times are flashing up on display boards, scrolling results screens and computer terminals around Cowes - and of course, via the Internet, around the world as well. Sailing enthusiasts on the other side of the globe will join competitors arriving ashore after a hard day's racing to see who's winning, who's losing, and also whether anyone still on the water can beat the leaders on corrected time - and it's LIVE!

With finishing rates on some days approaching 20 boats per minute, the task of recording sail numbers and finishing times can be extremely difficult for the Race Officials. However, the application of some advanced technology means that the results team is able to keep pace with the flow of data and still ensure that accurate results are available just seconds after boats had crossed the finish lines.

"We have to work to an extremely tight time schedule," notes Rayner. "If we had to manually resolve all of the queries on the finishing sheets, we'd never get to bed at night and the competitors and newspapers would never get their results. To solve the problem, we've given the results computer system enough intelligence to sort out the majority of issues on its own. Usually it manages to fix around 80% of the problems which it finds, and only comes to us for help on the really tricky ones."

In these more difficult cases, the results team use video recordings of the finishing sequence to assist with the query and error resolution. Meanwhile, other parts of the system maintain an automatic watch on the results of all races, constantly looking out for suspicious finishing times, while at the same time checking that each competitor's declared finish time ties up with the official version.

Naturally, a successful operation such as this doesn't happen by accident. Months of careful planning, briefing sessions with race officials and close liaison with all parts of the race organisation are key to ensuring the smooth integration of advanced technologies into the more traditional manual processes at Cowes. The team from Next Generation Results has had plenty of experience in this field however. Formed 13 years ago by Rayner and co-Director Gerard Lancaster, the company specialises in the provision of professional race management, information and results systems for boat racing events, and now supplies a full range of services to the largest events in the UK boating calendar. Since they started, Rayner and Lancaster have processed just short of 150,000 boats and produced results for nearly 7000 classes.

"The team's vast skill and knowledge means we're able to offer an unparalleled level of service for competitors, press, public and sailing fans around the world," comments Rayner. "It's just possible that there's a group of people somewhere on the planet with more experience of doing this - but frankly we doubt it."

It's a fact that everyone at Skandia Life Cowes Week will appreciate when the first gun fires on 4th August.

COURSE SETTING SOFTWARE

The Course setters at Skandia Life Cowes Week have to cope with around 1,000 boats split into 35 classes all wanting the best possible racing. This task is further complicated by the strong tides of the Solent and the sea breezes that can change the wind direction half way through the day!

The course setting is helped enormously by a custom-designed computer software program which was written by Graeme Winn of Sailmath and who is perhaps best known for his 'Deckman for windows' tactical software that is used on most top level racing boats.

The program has an accurate tidal database and the location of all the Solent marks and headlands and takes weather forecasts input prior to each day's racing. There is also a 'speed polar table' for each class that takes the wind strength and wind angle into account when estimating each class's speed around the racecourse.

Once a draft course has been fed to the computer, the software conducts various checks to ensure that it is inherently sensible; for example not sending one class around a buoy in the opposite direction to another class, or allowing too many boats to arrive at the same mark and at the same time. It then calculates the wind angle and time on each leg, giving estimated times of arrival at each mark and the finish. These details are printed out together with a diagram so that the course setters can check that their draft course is sensible for the class concerned.

The program then prints out the final version of the course, with the marks in order of rounding and whether they are to be left to port or starboard. They are then ready for the radio operator or course board operators to announce the courses to the competitors.

During the day's racing, new forecasts and/or actual mark rounding times can be input, giving updated expected finishing times, so allowing the Principal Race Officer to shorten course for particular classes if necessary.

EXHIBITION OF COWES' YACHTING HERITAGE

To mark this year's Skandia Life Cowes Week and the 150th America's Cup Jubilee, the Isle of Wight Council's Museums Service and Newport's Classic Boat Museum are mounting an exhibition charting the contribution made by Cowes to the history of yachting. The displays will focus on the acclaimed social side of Cowes Week, local boat designers, and the growth of Cowes Harbour. There will also be some rarely seen photographs of the 1930s J Class yachts by William Kirk, who operated as a photographer in the town between 1880 and 1945.

The Exhibition will open on 1st August at Cowes Maritime Museum (which shares the same Beckford Road premises as Cowes Library).

Skandia Life Cowes Week, which is based in Cowes, on the Isle of Wight, takes place from Saturday 4th to Saturday 11th August.

More Information:

  • YachtsandYachting.com Cowes Week Page

See also: AMERICAN 23 for sale