I did the Clipper Race [0] in 2007 when Hannah Jenner was the skipper aboard Glasgow. I never sailed directly under her but I sailed with plenty of others who did and they had nothing but praise for her abilities. I was also on a boat racing against her's numerous times so I've witnessed the sailing aspect firsthand.
At one point her boat had a man overboard in a force 6 in the southern ocean. It's a testament to her skill that he survived. It requires true leadership to keep your cool in those sorts of conditions.
I think they simply start different divisions on different days, at least according to the sailing instructions [1]
There are a variety of handicapping systems. This race uses TPYC ratings determined by US Sailing [2]
The TPYC rating uses the mainly downwind Transpac Wind Matrix, a Pacific Swell adjustment, a power trim adjustment, and a handicap course length of 2300 nautical miles to establish time allowances from the fastest rated yacht.
Other rating systems include IMS[3], attempting to make predictions of potential boat performance based on detailed hull measurements, and IRC[4], a committee based system trying to avoid attempts to game the handicaps.
Of course it[1] is gameable. Yachts are designed specifically to perform well under it.
Nevertheless its a reasonable rule system, that tends to produce mostly decent boats. Its quite impressive that a yacht from the 20's can be competitive under it.
Incidentally, handicap racing is quite normal in yachting. However, most races have a separate 'outright' division, and depending on the race that often attracts more attention
Yeah, that probably shouldn't be buried near the end of the article. I felt deceived. Obviously I don't follow sailing, but it seems really silly that they could lose by 4 days and still "win."
That's not "win", that's simply win. They won by the rules. The rules take into account all kinds of factors and there is nobody from any one of the other crews that would put that win in quotes detracting from it like you did.
The whole idea of handicapping is to make the race more fair, not less so.
I totally understand that, and I realize that I sound stupid to anyone who follows sailing. What my comment was intended to do was represent the viewpoint of someone who isn't used to that interpretation of the word "fair." My comment was intended as a critique of the sport—to the layman (by which I really mean "to me") it seems like the fastest boat should win in a boat race.
Well, then why bother with just sails? Might as well power up then. The problem here is that no two boats are alike and that sailboats design parameters have a direct effect on their top speed (hull length being the most important one).
If you want to race two different boats (and they're almost all different) you will have to use some kind of handicap.
So any race without a handicap would immediately penalize the shorter boats. And then it becomes a race of who has the most money. The three different kinds of races (handicap, rating, one design) mean that everybody gets to compete how they want. Once you enter a race under those conditions when you win, you win for real.
And no-one in their right mind would enter a boat into a race they'd already lost before it started so you can consider any of that very hard fought for, sailing is tremendously competitive.
In the late 80's in between a lot of other stuff I did back then I worked for a while for a very state-of-the-art sailmaker in the Netherlands to write CAD software to create sail designs and cut-plans. So I'm not a sailor or anything like that but I've read quite a bit about it and worked with people that spent as much of their lives on the water as off and I know that they would take a remark like that in a very bad way.
For two boats that are equal the differentiating factors in actual speed (so otherwise equal conditions) are crew, sails, stays, mast. It's not rare to see a better crew out-sail a much better boat.
The headline isn't deceitful, but similarly its not completely unfair for the reader to expect an (Economist style) explanation of "winning" in any race with such a headline. FKTs on routes like trans-oceanic voyages are still a viable and interesting form of racing. You also have one design races in the olympics and winner-take all "rules" like the Americas Cup. Handicapps have their place but not all sailors rate them as the best/default form of racing. (That they are really geared toward financial considerations of the asset owners/and their accountants, and have little to do with pure racing, may have something to do with it).
The headline is about the boat winning the race, but my understanding is that the handicap is to even the field for sailors, regardless of their boat. So it's misleading to focus so much on the boat.
Well, I can tell you, if you win a race because it is only when you're in your "extra time" that the wind finally picks up, it doesn't really feel like winning. Happened to me in a course race.
The weather during the different time frames may vary wildly. It may work to your advantage, or to your disadvantage — on average, it will be canceled out.
But rating/handicap systems sure make that there's more luck involved than in one-class races. Not that that's a bad thing.
The problem is with the reporting, not the race. You can't write an article about "wow look at this 70 year old boat that's winning races" and bury "oh, did I mention that these races use a handicap system?" ten paragraphs in.
This boat is also where we get the name "Dorade box" which is a design of deck ventilator which catches the wind and directs it through the deck of the ship to the cabin below yet rejects any captured water.
For a vaguely startup connection, Matt Brooks is also the founder of Brooks Range Mountaineering a small company that makes high performance/light weight outdoor gear and clothing. They've done some cool/risky/disruptive things over the years including a (now discontinued) winter tent that used a laminated, heat reflective material.
At one point her boat had a man overboard in a force 6 in the southern ocean. It's a testament to her skill that he survived. It requires true leadership to keep your cool in those sorts of conditions.
[0] http://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/
[1] http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/139315