Is College Match Racing the Right Move?

Chris Love 2 years ago

In just a few weeks, the Intercollegiate Sailing Association (ICSA) will hold its first Sloop National Championshipship using the new match racing format, November 20-21 at Kings Point.

Previous to this year, Sloops was always a fleet race. Many voices in college sailing called for a change on the grounds that Sloops was so unlike the rest of the championships (team racing, singlehanded men's and women's, coed dinghies and women's dinghies) that it was no longer relevant or practical. A motion was made, and eventually passed, to keep the championship but switch to a match race format, staying in line with the adoption of women's match racing as an Olympic sport and the growing popularity of match racing in the US.

Surely this first year will be a learning experience for all--sailors, coaches, hosts and ICSA organizers. Most sailors in ICSA have never sailed a match race in their lives, while BC's Taylor Canfield is ranked number 31 in the world! But, after a few runnings of this event, the hope is that teams will learn the game and excel at it, putting as much priority on match racing as the other arms of the college sailing game.

What do you think? Is match racing any more relevant to college sailing than sloop fleet racing was? Is there time in the schedule to practice and hold regular season events while still competing in the other events? Is match racing good for college sailing?

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Categories: college sailing

12 comments

Jeff Dusek 2 years ago

I was fortunate enough to be able to umpire the NEISA qualifier which was held at the Coast Guard academy a few weeks ago. The event was very well run, and overall the quality of racing was high. The boat handling was in general good, and most of the teams seemed to have some idea how the match race game is played.

With that said, it was very apparent who had spent a lot of time match racing, and who hadn't. In my mind, this was a good thing, and it was interesting to see some very fast dinghy sailors not make it out of the first round. Taylor won the event, but he did not win every race. In my opinion he is the favorite for nationals, but in shifty conditions like we saw at Coast Guard a lot can happen quickly and it is easy to drop a match.

As far as running the event, it is true that the logistics are more involved than a fleet race. For NEISA champs we had 6 powerboats on the water- RC, breakdown, mark set, and 3 umpire boats. More umpires would have been nice to have wing boats for every start, but 3 worked pretty well. The other difficult part is flags- a match race flag set is not cheap, and I think it is great NEISA invested to have a complete set made before qualifiers.

Overall, I think it is a great change, and I look forward to watching the coverage of nationals!

Response 2 years ago

Really Quiet Thinker is the only one who brought facts into this topic. I don't think many people were aware of the ISAF ranking factor involved with this decision. There are a few left over points I think need to be made here however.

One thing is running a match race event. We really owe a debt of gratitude to the Service Academies for running Sloop Championships, along with CofC of course and other who typically ALWAYS run the event. Without those schools stepping up and running the events...then what would college sailing do, it would be a hell of a lot more difficult to succeed in that regard. So in the past there have been Sloop Fleet Racing events which are relatively easy to run. But a match race event now takes a great deal of organization to run successfully, on top of all the other events that are run by those same schools.

I think that Match Racing is an excellent IDEA. But really it SEEMS like the Match Race discipline was added although thought about for "2 years" without a plan for how it would work. Last year at sloop nationals...nationals...I recall that there were two teams who spun on a yellow flag thrown by the judges when they were not supposed to spin, ultimately taking a championship away from SMC and BC came away with the win. What makes College Sailing believe that understanding the flags in a match race will be any easier?

With little to no significance in the Fowle Trophy Rankings, why should coaches spend so much time teaching this? What is the immediate incentive for the school, coaches, competitors?

Before people start bombarding this with cries of "it's in the olympics", try to see the other side of the coin for a moment understanding the simplicity of Fleet Racing and the complexities that the Match Racing will create.

Quiet Thinker 2 years ago

Couple things to start with. The change in disciplines was not a knee-jerk reaction by any group of individuals. This discipline was discussed for nearly two years before it was approved. As for weight restrictions, it is mandatory to have the restriction that it has in order to get the event ISAF graded which was a major point for the approval of Match Racing instead of fleet. The weight number is not arbitrary either as it's the same as other ISAF MR events with the same crew numbers.

One other short point is that anything that directly or indirectly prevents the inclusion of women in college sailing is poor. I would make a case that there are at least as many women competing in college sailing than men. A high weight maximum would in many cases indirectly prevent some women from competing in a sloop championship ( I also think you'll see multiple women SKIPPERING under the format as well).

Plenty of women have competed in Sloop Championships. I'm sorry there isn't a complete list that you can see. As for Service Academy success-that is directly related to the fact that most of the District and many National Championships have been held at their venues giving a huge advantage (not to mention the ability to actually practice in those boats).

As for a 20-30 boat event, good luck finding that many even boats...although i do think it's a cool idea!

I think it's a great move for college sailing and I'm pretty sure my pants are still around my waist.

Meh 2 years ago

It's a good idea, but until Taylor Canfield graduates it's kind of pointless for anyone else to even try...

Henry Schultz 2 years ago

All sailing is good, all racing is good!

thoughts, or dreams? 2 years ago

RE: Thoughts

Really, match racing is a "dying" discipline of the sport? what planet are you living on? Match racing has never been bigger in the US, especially at the youth level. YCs around the country are buying up fleets of boats, our kids are competing overseas, and its finally in the OLYMPICS for crying out loud. And yeah, of course there's a weight limit. Match racing is all about making the playing field as equal as possible, so having one boat be 100's of pounds heavier than another doesn't make any sense if the breeze picks up. Plus, as a current college sailor I know plenty of girls who compete for service academies. Just look at Navy and CG. Finally- as for your suggestion about a non-qualifier regatta, I disagree entirely. Since when is a college national championship a synonym for a free-for-all? Keep dreaming man.

Lame 2 years ago

There are umpires and judges making decisions that affect the outcome in team racing and fleet racing too, and thank god we have them! Match racing may not be right for college sailors but not because of umpiring. That's a pretty lame thing to say.

Bo 2 years ago

Anything that includes more umpires making decisions about who wins the race is a bad idea

Tom Charpentier 2 years ago

I think it's a good idea and I hope it grows. Most elite sailing programs around the world incorporate match racing as at least part of their curriculum. Many if not most of the world's most prestigious professional inshore circuits use the match racing format. While I understand that the majority of us will never go pro, we are hobbling our top sailors if we limit their exposure to the match racing discipline at an age when their peers in countless other countries are already well advanced in their training. It is of course up to the individual sailors whether or not they want to compete in events such as the World Match Racing Tour or the America's Cup, but I suspect there are at least some who do, and we are not doing them any favors by ignoring perhaps the most "layman-friendly" (and thus TV-friendly) of sailing's disciplines.

As far as match racing's value to the ICSA is concerned, I like it because it makes sloop racing its own event with its own unique skillset. No longer can you expect to do well just by fielding a top dinghy skipper and some heavier crews who can fly a kite. The old sloop championship was really just a holdover from the old days of college sailing when keelboats were more common (I'm pretty sure Coast Guard once had a fleet of Stars!). Now we have men's and women's individual champs, mixed match racing champs, open team and fleet racing champs, and women's fleet racing champs. I think that's a pretty balanced program. I hope collegiate match racing expands and I hope coaches and sailors are willing to give the discipline a chance. It really is a fun and challenging game.

Relevance 2 years ago

Another debate that we should talk about on another thread is weather college sailing does a good job of preparing young sailors for high level competition after college. A lot of Olympic hopefuls and big boat racers say "no," since it only favors sailors of a certain weight sailing certain low-performance, un-tunable dinghies on courses way shorter than you'll ever find in any international competition.

But as far as this thread is concerned, a match racing championship makes college sailing way more relevant, not only in terms of the new women's match race medal in the Olympics, but also in regards to the Americas Cup, pro sailing events such as the World Match Race Tour and keelboat sailing in general. It may need some tweaking over the next few years but on the whole it's a hell of a lot better than the meaningless sloop trophy that used to be awarded each year.

Keep the match format!

Thoughts 2 years ago

The addition of "Match Racing" really was not thought out at all for the rules and the format of the event. Yes it is true that there is a WOMENS MATCH RACE SCENE. But then why is there only the addition of one woman on the boat? And not the skipper? Really doesn't make much sense. Why is there a weight limit? Does it really matter what the weight of the boat is, and why is there a sudden restriction on the weight of a sloop boat or ANY boat in collegiate competition? If there is a team with a four man crew who wants to be 1000lbs, is that such a big deal? Throughout the life of collegiate sailing it has been apparent that it has been for the interest and inclusion of all eligible competitors within a college or university. Why does my 250lb friend get restricted from the sloop team this year because of his weight? This simply doesn't seem to be within the realm of what collegiate sailing is all about. It really seems like the creators and advocates of this change were more interested in being a part of the change itself then the actual benefits or negatives of the change. Match racing is an interesting part of sailboat racing, but I agree with the question at hand, is it really that good for college racing?

Heres a suggestion. How about no qualifier at all. How about each conference gets any and all number of boats they want and anyone can participate in a large keel boat fleet race for a national championship. Maybe we have 30 boats participating in some years, maybe we have 20 boats in others. But within MAISA and NEISA there are 10 boats competing each year in qualifiers, so there is 20 boats already. Matach Racing is a great aspect of sailboat racing as I have already mentioned, but the addition of a new discipline such as this at this point in time, with really no direction at all leaves more and more people thinking why are we even doing this?

In the past 20 years how many women have competed in a Sloop Championship? Probably count it on one hand. So now you make a mandatory one woman rule for a discipline to supplement the olympic discipline? Service academies have historically been large players in Sloop Championships. Where do they now stand? It seems as if the creators and advocates of the match racing format have been caught with their pants around their ankles in an attempt to be heros for a dying discipline within the sport.

Thoughts 2 years ago