Re: [Paddlewise] hull speed

Rafael wrote:

> I was going to try to use the hull speed as criteria, but since it only
> takes the length and not the width (at waterline level), a wide long boat
> will be slower than a narrow rounded bottom  boat.
>
>
>
> Is there some rule of thumb to take length and width and try a simple
> equation that will give some kind of handicap? I don`t think there would 
> be
> time to make hull measurements before the race to run the drag programs.

Unfortunately the answer is no. No matter what simple formula you use it 
will be unfairly punitive  to some and unfairly beneficial to others. 
Resistance is just to complex. I can give you a lot of reasons why 
mathematical handicapping is flawed. I would not even trust my own 
resistance formula (KAPER - used by Sea Kayaker to evaluate boats) which is 
less than reliable for many boats and worse if one tries to modify it.

I have seen a number of methods used to equalize casual racing. One type has 
everyone start out racing to a marker buoy. When the first boat reaches it 
he turns around for the return leg. Then as he approaches following boats 
they turn around.  This assumes that the competitors will not cheat and 
paddle slowly for the first part of the race. It seems to work where 
everyone is just having fun and not absorbed with winning ands usually 
results in a whole lot of boats finishing at one time which is a lot of fun.

For serious racers we sometimes used a "claiming race" strategy. Each 
competitor was free to pick what he thought was a fair handicap which had a 
boat price attached to it. The higher the handicap the lower the price (i.e. 
the slower you think your boat is the lower your selling price). If he/she 
won they had to put their boat up for sale for the price affixed to their 
boat. This kept the racing guys from using too low a handicap and risking 
losing their boat for too low a price. It is truly amazing how much higher 
the handicaps got when this system was used. :-) This is also done in horse 
racing I think

Another method is to have two races of shorter duration that are used to 
establish a handicap of which one is the actual race and the other for 
establishing the handicap. The key is not to tell the competitors which race 
was the actual race and which is for handicap purposes. This forces the 
competitors to try hard in both races since they won't know which is the 
real race. Anyone trying to cheat will be obvious. The handicap is 
calculated from the handicap race. People will rarely finish in the same 
order in both races so it lends a bit of uncertainty to the racing. I think 
it works best if there is a day or two between the races and would probably 
benefit from more than two races to give you two races to average for the 
handicap.

There are probably other methods but these have worked in the past although 
last one is a bit extreme. I once saw a paddler slow down to finish second 
because he thought he had priced his boat too low.

Cheers

John Winters
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