Round Ireland Race

[RichA (Lamont)]

Options:

• Announce that from 2012 the weights for each class will reduce by 5% per year for a total reduction over 3 years of 15%. So that in 2015 the weights will be 15% lower than currently stated. This gives the current heavy build boats 5 years before the exotic lightweight boats have full advantage, and also encorages those planning on a boat to have an idea where the weight will be in 5 years time. You can build for 2015, and remove ballast each year. It will also stop the complaints from those who know the weights are not set at a reasonable level.
• Create an 'open' class, or 'experimental' class where there are no or reduced limits. Calling it experimental will diferentiate the class from the 'normal' marathon boats. Give it a class numbe 'X' and list them last on the results. But allow anything that is safe to run, including turbines, exotic materials etc... Any boat that does not make a class rule - like those listed above can still take part, but under the experimental rules in their own class - Taking part is half the fun. So you bought 600's and not 525's - Off to get a number prefix 'X' and go racing...

[Scand]

Originally Posted by Mikko Oikari

No,no! Too antique...

Looks interesting, what is it?

[Mikko Oikari]

Originally Posted by Scand

Looks interesting, what is it?

Will post some pictures when the boat gets back from the painter.

[Jon Fuller]

If you build rules (in an effort to please everyone, an impossible task) that allow anything (Mark Lamont, AKA Rich A comment) to compete, such that those boats end up quicker than the class pitched as the formula 1 / big cheese class (A) you'd have a lot of quite rightly pissed off A class owners.
Someone has to be king of the hill, class wise, and allowing non compliant boats to beat the grand fromages, albeit under an added class title, would be foolish.

I don't understand why everyone wants to fix this, when it aint broke. As I said, come and race if you like it, and if you don't like it, stay away. Or better still, form a new, completely open class with no rules at all and see how fkkn long it all lasts, or doesn't, but please stop messing with stuff thats been laid down and people have built / are building boats to.

Most of the folk complaining, would complain WHATEVER class they race in, its just the way they are.

Deans Fountain, with suitable power for B class is bang on the weight, it may not be a super light exotic build, but it must represent a fairly modern high perf build, so I think that proves we're not far off the money....By the time it had safety kit, liferaft etc, and residual fuel.......

As for Bananashark's 'special light build' As I understand it, it will have a very similar build to Swipes,( Aramat/balsa core etc. not super exotic, but far from old hat resin bucket! )
Swipes meets the weight rules just fine.

The Fountain, with 525s, or even Ilmors would meet the rules for B class without adding weight. And a great boat it would be too.

Opening the class to supercharged engines opens a whole new can of worms, because whilst Deans engines are not crazy, that capacity of engine, blown, can be crazy. Hence the limits on blown engines. and the attempt to discourage blowers and keep things competitive and affordable.

Also, please stop using the word flexible! rules are rules. if they're flexible, they aint rules, and it would soon run crazily out of control as we see 'flexibility' being dished out willy nilly, protests every which feckin where, and even more arguments. FFS, it aint that hard to just comply, and race. You might even enjoy it.

As for the dreaded power to weight debate, how would anyone propose to police those power figures? have you learned nothing from P1? clearly not as it's virtually impossible..

Also, rules based on P-T-W are fundamentally flawed anyway, because it encourages the biggest, heaviest, most powerful boat (especially in long distance offshore), so there you have cheque book racing again. the little sprint boat wont sprint any quicker than the giants, so would never even get a look in. why is that so hard to grasp?

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by Goinglean

As I see it a great set of rules were drawn up a few years ago & with a tweak here and there should make them future proof

Any comments ?? -

Until the next set of complainers (they will come, believe me, and sooner than you'd think) then we'll see more good old 'flexibility' being metered out to 'certain folk' and we'll have the 80's cruiser rules debarcle all over again (will we never learn). The older chaps here will remember the cruiser rules from back then, how often they changed (to suit the influential) and how it totaly f*cked up a good, fun, affordable racing class.

FFS just get on with it.

Golden-fishboys:

If ya boats aren't capable of doing well with a bit of extra weight (and no more than anyone else has to carry), they aint so good after all, are they.

Everyone else:

stop whining.

[Scand]

This is becoming a very interesting thread. What happing to the round Ireland race?

What the sport really needs now is stability. If it is to be taken seriously, we can’t go around and change the rules every five minutes.

[Jon Fuller]

Petter, history shows that you can completely and utterly f*ck a class up with a few carefully chosen rule changes, especially if it can be seen to be done to appease someone, or because the person asking for it 'has influence', ie, the WRONG reasons. People soon loose interest.

[Scand]

What's the change for the goldfish 36 then?

Originally Posted by PhatFrank

More precisely, we know what boat we want. I know that at least two other Norwegian teams want the same boat. There is evidently already a UK team that has a Goldfish 36 RIB (not one of the 2 boats from RB08, so no grandfathering here…) and that has entered this in Round Ireland, RB11 and RB12. As far as I can understand (which isn’t always that far) this boat needs around 700 kg to meet the requirements, so I’m guessing they are in for a nasty surprise.

[cfun]

What you guys need is a person with ... DRIVE ... MOTIVATION ... CHARISMA ... in charge and I found just the man

[Scand]

...and he knows how to dress!

[cfun]

Originally Posted by Scand

...and he knows how to dress!

Clearly a person with impeccable taste just look at that dedication to duty plastered all over his face ... I rest my case

[hunton69]

Originally Posted by Scand

This is becoming a very interesting thread. What happing to the round Ireland race?

What the sport really needs now is stability. If it is to be taken seriously, we can’t go around and change the rules every five minutes.

The question is.

Why only 7 boats if Marathon racing is so popular.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by Scand

...and he knows how to dress!

But he can't actually do it himself.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by hunton69

The question is.

Why only 7 boats if Marathon racing is so popular.

The other racers have gone skint?

Or maybe, all the f*cking endless bickering and descent from the 'never happy' brigade has just pissed everyone off.

I vote for the latter.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by RichA

Options:

• Announce that from 2012 the weights for each class will reduce by 5% per year for a total reduction over 3 years of 15%. So that in 2015 the weights will be 15% lower than currently stated. This gives the current heavy build boats 5 years before the exotic lightweight boats have full advantage, and also encorages those planning on a boat to have an idea where the weight will be in 5 years time. You can build for 2015, and remove ballast each year. It will also stop the complaints from those who know the weights are not set at a reasonable level.
• Create an 'open' class, or 'experimental' class where there are no or reduced limits. Calling it experimental will diferentiate the class from the 'normal' marathon boats. Give it a class numbe 'X' and list them last on the results. But allow anything that is safe to run, including turbines, exotic materials etc... Any boat that does not make a class rule - like those listed above can still take part, but under the experimental rules in their own class - Taking part is half the fun. So you bought 600's and not 525's - Off to get a number prefix 'X' and go racing...

Option 3, leave things alone.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by Goinglean

My mistake

You have a pair of 525s don't you? (ex ARPRO)

There's a rumour that you also have a pair of Ilmors (ex Cinzano)

Seems to me there are plenty of options for you to run the 'Fountain 42 Poker Run' should you actually want to.

[Cookee]

Originally Posted by FLYING FISH

.I can`t believe that say `Banana shark` sets out to build a boat that will not incorporate the latest design thinking to achieve min wt,which if progress is to be made could well be under the rule limit,just using old tin construction as a yardstick, which I know is on the limit.If it doesn`t it shows we are in a backwater.

Well for Class E the limit is 246kg/m and with a pair of 3 litre diesels in a 34' boat I will be incredibly happy to come in at under 2.5 tonnes, especially once all of the race kit is on board, but then again like Swipewipes I expect the boat to look like new having completed one lap of the big course!

Can't speak for the other classes, but if we moved up a class it would only add 160kg - of course if we were to put Ilmore 700's in our 34' hull it may need a little ballast!

[Bus Pass]

Originally Posted by Jon Fuller

Until the next set of complainers (they will come, believe me, and sooner than you'd think) then we'll see more good old 'flexibility' being metered out to 'certain folk' and we'll have the 80's cruiser rules debarcle all over again (will we never learn). The older chaps here will remember the cruiser rules from back then, how often they changed (to suit the influential) and how it totaly f*cked up a good, fun, affordable racing class.

.

Absolutely! We had one class in cruiser racing in 1980 and then the rules were changed to suit people who wanted to race boats which didn't comply, ended with 6 classes and less racing. Right now we want to keep the momentum going, offshore racing is on the up, we got some rules lets stick with them.

[Jon Fuller]

Originally Posted by Cookee

Like Swipewipes, I expect the boat to look like new having completed one lap of the big course!

Wise words. And, without having to bust the bank in the build.

And a boatbuilders view.

Originally Posted by Bus Pass

Absolutely! We had one class in cruiser racing in 1980 and then the rules were changed to suit people who wanted to race boats which didn't comply, ended with 6 classes and less racing. Right now we want to keep the momentum going, offshore racing is on the up, we got some rules lets stick with them.

More wise words, from another boatbuilder, who's seen and done way more than most, and seen all this before!

Any advance on two boatbuilders?....Mike??

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Bus Pass

Absolutely! We had one class in cruiser racing in 1980 and then the rules were changed to suit people who wanted to race boats which didn't comply, ended with 6 classes and less racing. Right now we want to keep the momentum going, offshore racing is on the up, we got some rules lets stick with them.

Right on the button Jeff.
ML.
.