Saturday, January 3, 2009

GP Scoring




I've been playing with the I-14 Travellers Series scoring system as posted on the IMCA-UK website. This system results in a linear correlation between place and points, i.e., no "bonus" points for high finishes. The system does reward every boat in the fleet for large turnouts, but you still need to finish in the upper two thirds to do well. For example, the following all score 33 points: 1st/5, 2nd/6, 3rd/7. To score 33 points in a fleet of 99 (like last year's worlds) you would have to finish 66th. There is a theoretical maximum score of 100 (for 1st place in an infinitely large fleet). For typical large fleets (say of 25 boats) a first place would garner 82 points. Interestingly, if you always finish dead last, the system is biased toward fleets sizes of five to eight (a last place in each of these fleets scores 7 points, but last place in a fleet of four or nine boats only scores 6 points.)

According to the UK website, no results are discarded for series scoring, so a competitor can continue to accrue points if he or she attends all events in the series. So here're some questions: does anyone actually use this or a similar system? And who was last year's winner of the UK Travellers Trophy, and with how many points? And how much did he weigh?

Rock with the Travelin' Band



Travellin' Band, by John Fogerty (1970)

Seven Thirty Seven comin' out of the sky.
Oh! Won't you take me down to Memphis on a midnight ride,
I wanna move.

[Chorus:]
Playin' in a Travelin' Band. Yeah!
Well, I'm flyin' 'cross the land, try'in' to get a hand,
Playin' in a Travelin' Band.

Take me to the hotel, Baggage gone, oh, well.
Come on, come on, won't you get me to my room,
I wanna move.

[Chorus]

Listen to the radio, Talkin' 'bout the last show.
Someone got excited, Had to call the State Militia,
Wanna move.

[Chorus]

Oh! WOW!

Here we come again on a Saturday night
Oh with your fussin' and a fightin'
Won't you get me to the rhyme,
I wanna move.

[Chorus]

Oh! WOW!

Oh! I'm playin' in a Travelin' Band;
Playin' in a Travelin' Band.
Won't you get me, take me hand
Well, I'm playin' in a Travelin' Band,
Well, I'm flyin' 'cross the land.
Tryin' to get a hand,
Playin' in a Travelin' Band, OH! WOW!

Hey!

1 comment:

Karl said...

Joe, I'm sure you know this, but Great Britain is less than half the size of California. They have 58 million people; California has 37 million. So traveling in the US is simply a different situation from traveling in the UK.

I'm not sure a travelers' trophy for the whole country makes much sense, frankly, though there are probably ways to break it down into more meaningful chunks of space.