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Board » General Discussion » Team Boats / Group Boats

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Posted by
RainbowChaser


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2014-01-04 12:45:41 - Team Boats / Group Boats
Background to Team Boats on SOL

Sailonline has a rule of "one sailor one boat", so that one individual cannot sail various routes with different boats and claim victory (a minor consideration in the early days was also bandwidth hogging). As in reality, folks need to participate with one boat only - you can't physically be in two boats at one time! Boatsitting (ie, minding someone else's boat while they are away for a brief period) has always been OK so long as it is clearly an ad hoc arrangement.

Over time, the concept of "one boat several skippers/crew" has also developed, i.e., team boats.

The concept of team boats emerged from a particularly unhappy time for Sailonline, referred to sometimes as The SOL Flamewars of 2011. This occurred when a group of Italian sailors who, individually (but collaborating together) had started doing very well in almost all SOL races. As a sensible and fair response to the unrest, and in the spirit of fair play, this group decided to form a team boat so that their joint efforts would grab just one spot in the rankings rather than several.

This caused a huge debate which can be read here - not one of SOL's finest hours and it did have quite an impact, resulting in people just walking away from the game and leaving those left behind very unhappy. Race Chat during this time was not a happy place at all.

Since then, different races and different occasions have cropped up and Team Boats are no longer the anathema they once were... being created sometimes as a one-off where folks just can't individually make the time to sail a race but do so together with a group of friends.

There is little impact on SYC or championship rankings of these team boats as, usually, the Team Boats aren't members of SYC themselves and even if they were, they don't race often enough to rank highly.

It seems to me that the time has come to consolidate all the thinking on this - on the basis that team boats are permissible.

The rules/conventions that have evolved so far are these:

1. The individual members of the team must all be members of SYC

2. The team boat must announce its formation in the Forums and list (a) the members of that team and (b) the purpose for which it has been formed.

3. Individual members of a team may register to practise in a race but, if the team boat is racing, then the individual boats may not race - if they do then the individual is in breach of the "one boat one skipper" rule and their boat in that race will be disabled and/or subject to other penalty by the SRC (Sailonline Race Committee).

-----------
From memory, the following are the team boats I know about, and their membership, so, in commenting on this post, please would you add other boats I may have missed out.


LIST OF TEAM BOATS

La Armada
Purpose: Sailonine World Race 2012 Members: GREATSKUA, canalejas, elbetico

El Cid Campeador
Purpose: Fin Swe Archipelago Raid
Members: elbetico, kareoke, anchoilla and maritronco.

ITA 2011, ITA_2012
Purpose: ocean races
Members: WINSTON_4, ghibli, ita10267, Gilles

Team South Africa
Purpose: any/all races
Members: NakedSailor and other members of Port Elizabeth YC.

Raid Team
Purpose: Fin Swe Archipelago Raid
Members: nacrr, hmm, ArtPainter

ITA 4 Aaron
Purpose: AGage's Around Australia Race
Members: WINSTON_4, ghibli, ita10267, Gilles

SWE Rossy
Purpose: any/all races
Members: robert1, sassy63, Svein

Lazysheets
Purpose: Timed/Sprint championships, Weekend races (unranked)
Members: javakeda, Dingo


There are and have been other boats that originally registered with the word "team" in their name but they seem to only occasionally race and as individuals.


Are there other rules to be applied or are you satisfied that reasonableness is served by what we are doing already?
____________














--- Last Edited by RainbowChaser at 2014-04-28 11:47:14 ---
Posted by
nacrr


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2010-01-01 15:57:17
2014-01-04 14:33:23 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
ArtPainter was also a member of the TeamRaid boat. Please make the correction.

Nuno
nacrr
Posted by
RainbowChaser


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2014-01-04 15:25:44 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
nacrr - thank you! :-)
Posted by
Rod


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2010-06-24 22:30:48
2014-01-04 20:14:46 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
In general I object to the concept of "More than one boat per sailor" just as much as I object to "More than one sailor per boat". It gives an unfair competitive edge to a small number of competitors over the rest of us, who do not 'team-up'.
In any "fair" competition, you just cannot have one group of players with a "structural" advantage over the rest.
I realize that 'boat-sitting' became allowed in the early days, and I did not like it then (or now), but it seems to have become the 'foot-in-the-door' for some boats to be 'looked-after' 24 hrs per day, while the rest of us need to work, sleep or just live our daily lives.
In brief, I vote for "One Sailor, One Boat", exclusively.
Purely as a side-light on this, I have two e-mail addresses, (one of which I have never used) but I could presumably register a second (or even many) boat(s) with the second address(es), and no one would know anything about it. Is this ever checked? Can it be checked?

--- Last Edited by Rod at 2014-01-04 20:16:21 ---
If it breaks, it's not strong enough--if it doesn't, it's too heavy.
Posted by
Svein


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2009-05-04 15:09:20
2014-01-04 21:19:01 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
Hi Rod,
you may also look at it this way - at least some tell you that they are teaming up. Boatsitting=OK IMO, but not if it stretches beyond 5-10% of a race duration. If it does then AFAIC it's an unannounced team.
FW
Posted by
kroppyer


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2010-02-05 15:25:55
2014-01-04 22:02:25 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
Without taking a stand on this topic, I would like to point out (in reaction to Rod), that team boats are a solution to another '"structural" advantage'. Some people have internet access all day long and can use it for SOL, some of them even have all day long to spend on SOL. Others, who might have better skills, but don't have so much time to spend. Some people need more sleep than others, some people are able to skip a night, while others might even need an extra nap.

I like to think that the challenge in SOL is to find the faster route. But for many (I assume) it's often a bigger challenge to actually sail that route because they don't have the time (or means). This second challenge can be overcome in a team, but the first (core) challenge is still (almost) unchanged.

--
It's an interesting topic, and I think I understand most arguments of both sides. I think that the rules are appropriate for how the team boats are used now.
Posted by
Rod


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2014-01-04 23:05:04 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
I agree that there is a 'structural advantage' in being retired, and therefore able to devote more time to SOL. I do not know how all these 'structural advantages' may be evened out across the full range of sailors......other than everyone becoming part of a team, which really does not seem possible......
If it breaks, it's not strong enough--if it doesn't, it's too heavy.
Posted by
kroppyer


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2014-01-05 16:35:02 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
I don't think there's a way (or at least a practical way) to even out these structural advantages. I was merely trying to say that allowing team boats just as much solves some of the advantages as it creates them. You could argue that team boats do not (significantly) contribute to the loads of structural (dis)advantages that are already there.

Racing in a team is a nice concept, it adds a new dimension to the "game". I don't think that, at the moment, mixing team boats with non-team boats is a problem. I've seen the idea of a team-race come by, in the discussion about the Archipellage Raid, and now in this revived thread.
Posted by
Rod


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2014-01-05 17:21:08 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
One solution might be to have specifically team races, and specifically single-handed races---much as in IRL......
If it breaks, it's not strong enough--if it doesn't, it's too heavy.
Posted by
kroppyer


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2014-02-21 00:08:41 - Re: Team Boats / Group Boats
For completeness, a big part of the races run on sol have some extra rules on teamboats: the ocean, sprint and timed race championships have stated in their NOR (6. Specific rules):
QUOTE
As an exception to the general SOL rules, should a Team decide to participate in this Championship, they will use the Team boat for the entire duration of the Championship, and NOT their individual boats in any of the single races (entering the tournament with one boat)
UNQUOTE

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