Mark Mulcare's Analysis

Winter 2006 Summary

Mark Mulcare has used the RaceTrack system and database to put together some very revealing statistics about our boats - such as the best performers based on PHRF, IRC, ORC and RaceTrack, as well as telling information about who has spent the most time on the water over winter, and vital club statistics too. Download as PDF 500kb >

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Looking at the SIMRAD 50

For the believers in numbers, RaceTrack has crunched the data for Simrad race 1, and from it, these are the wildly improbable conclusions to be drawn.

On the long haul course, if you were a multi, preferrably a big multi, then life was good, if you weren't, well on balance the smaller boats seemed to come out a little better, in part I'm sure because the sail management is a little easier. Top three multi's Sundreamer, Akarana Express and McMoggy, all over 5% above average, and for the lead mines, Truxton, Bavarian Wave and Fun-n-Games occupy the top spots. No real surprises, X-Factor and Wingz took line.

On the short haul course, no surprises that it wasn't a day for small light boats with only Atom Ant (not really a light boat) and Wild Oats looking to have had a good day, but surprisingly, at least to me, it wasn't much of a day for Farr boats either. Overall, Young 88's looked to enjoy the day with seven in the top twelve spots, but at the top of the pile was the Chico 30 Gentle Touch (on very light history), Oracle, who looked to have had a real blinder, and Atom Ant, Line went to the Hanse 370, Hanse Off.

On the small boat course, well the 'black' boats did okay with the 727 Black & Tan at the top, Black Fun second and Party Piedy filling spot three. Again, it didn't pay to be light, well maybe downwind but not upwind, that said, Rattle-n-Rum took line.

Overall, throwing in subjective opinion, quality of historical data, and just plain personal bias, I would have called the performance of the day as belonging to Oracle.

Looking at how the classes performed, the list below gives the class, percentage against history and number of boats racing.

multi 103.09 7
Stewart 34 101.80 2
Tracker 100.90 5
Elliott 1050 100.71 4
Young 88 100.39 1 5
Pied Piper 99.73 8
Farr 727 99.51 3
Farr 1020 98.91 6
Reactor 98.23 2
Ross 930 97.50 3
Farr 9.2 97.24 4
SR26 96.30 6
Elliott 7.9 94.52 2


And for those wanting their rating for the race, the below gives boat, percentage against race history and rating for race.

Long Haul

A Southern Man 98.33 1.000
Activator 99.04 0.855
Akarana Express 105.94 0.996
Alcattraz 97.03 0.758
Bavarian Wave 102.73 0.823
BMW Yachtsport 96.76 0.897
Danaide 99.59 0.785
Exodus 97.83 1.105
Fun-N-Games 101.55 0.887
Gale Force 100.35 0.836
Hooters 98.47 0.982
Marshall Law 100.35 0.915
McMoggy 105.75 1.262
O'Sinnerman 99.52 0.946
Peppermint Planet 99.15 0.787
Planet X 99.81 0.845
Repeat Offender 101.80 1.033
Rockstar 98.30 0.834
Samurai Jack 100.07 0.934
SEAQUEL 99.74 0.798
Sniper 100.29 0.867
Step By Step 96.58 0.838
Sundreamer 106.64 1.241
Surething 99.70 0.901
Time Lord 101.25 0.820
Truxton 104.14 0.853
Wasted Away Again 91.59 0.802
Whitebait 101.55 0.850
Wingz 89.21 1.031
X-Factor 105.20 1.312


Short Haul

88% Proof 102.73 0.811
Atom Ant 103.55 0.806
Azure 99.54 0.776
Cetacea 101.56 0.776
Choice Transport 94.17 0.714
Cloud 9 99.12 0.686
Communique 89.10 0.691
Cool Bear 99.49 0.706
Cool Change 91.87 0.734
Crowded House 101.53 0.793
Destiny in Motion 101.25 0.725
Escapology 96.81 0.742
Eye Spy 102.77 0.726
First Class 96.56 0.746
Gentle Touch 116.64 0.708
Grunty Chicken 95.11 0.746
Hanse Off 99.89 0.837
Hard Labour 101.97 0.832
Heartbeat 102.82 0.780
Heartlight 101.78 0.770
Hotdogger 95.79 0.764
Insight 95.55 0.718
Legless 93.89 0.711
Lynchmob 102.06 0.781
Marbles 101.72 0.775
Men at Work 97.17 0.745
Moving Violation 93.93 0.729
Oracle 108.90 0.812
Outrageous 97.91 0.760
Pink Cadillac 100.64 0.750
Precedent 103.10 0.771
Prince Hal 100.50 0.758
Ready Steady 95.33 0.724
Rush 98.96 0.711
Sailor Moon 101.83 0.794
Share Delight 97.36 0.770
Shokran 98.68 0.794
Sister Moonshine 101.88 0.776
Sonic 103.38 0.770
Stratocaster 100.59 0.826
Sweetest Thing 101.70 0.762
Wild Oats 101.38 0.762


Short haul cruising

EXPRESSWAY 103.89 0.818
Nevenka 101.33 0.755
Revolution 101.75 0.807
Trouper 100.01 0.695
Ubique 89.46 0.785


Small boats

Aqua Vitae 90.04 0.663
Aquaholic 104.46 0.665
Assailant 97.07 0.666
Black & Tan 110.78 0.638
Black Fun 104.63 0.654
Cantara 100.45 0.627
Ceasers Palace 103.69 0.624
Elly 94.70 0.634
High Profile 101.94 0.688
Interlude 2 98.96 0.592
Jagged Edge 96.58 0.696
Loose Unit 96.65 0.665
Mercenary 99.04 0.724
Mouse Trap 102.96 0.689
One Xtreme 94.24 0.636
Party Piedy 104.47 0.665
Pinotage 102.60 0.651
Quarter Pint 96.49 0.680
Rat Attack 101.53 0.700
Rattle n Rum 96.91 0.737
Rebel Yell 98.63 0.652
Sound Track 101.47 0.641
Southbound 102.50 0.700
Thermatech 91.26 0.600
Train Smash 97.91 0.715
Travellin Man 97.33 0.682
Triumph 93.72 0.626
Umeme 11 97.50 0.630
Wimoweh II 103.42 0.647
Yosemite Sam 101.69 0.700
ZGY 104.15 0.716

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RaceTrack speaks on the month of May

by Mark Mulcare

Well, so goes May and the first month of winter, and yes, this year, at least from my official crew position of 'rail whale in chief' there seems little confusion about it being winter. Not actively horrible in Auckland, but if you tried saying it was a delightful Indian summer, you'd be accused of having more delusions than the average racing tactician, and a few below average ones as well.

Boosted a little by a couple of nationals that fell out of April and into the May numbers, racing for the month included some 110 races, 1,139 race finishes and a total of 380 different boats racing. For comparison, that's about 55% of the peak months over summer and about 15% up on the same month as last year, after removing the effects of the Piedy nats, I'm sure all will agree you need to remove the effects of piedy's from pretty much anything intended for a family audience. A table showing the racing included is to be found at the end.

Boats new to the rankings this month include the Elliott 40 Mojo, of the name my boat competition on crew.org.nz, at 49, the Hanse 370 Hanse Off with the previously mentioned very suspect rail whale presiding over it's fridges, the Elliott 1050 Chain Reaction now racing at Ponsomby, seven boats from the Akaroa Cruising Club and eight of those Piedy's so dangerous to traditional family values. Dropping out of the list is Macintosh and the Wellington Farr 740sp Hawkeye.

Adjudged top boat for the month this month is the Pied Piper Mota Mouse from Sigma II and Wild Oats. Looking at the biggest jump in rankings, it was Wild Oats 40, Mota Mouse 37 and Lynchmob 30, whilst looking at percentage above history, we get Crocodile 10%, Sigma II 9.8% and Mota Mouse 8.5%. For a single race performance, Crocodile gets it in Richmond winter short handed race 1 at 15.47%, with Sigma II, Cruise Control Travellin' Man and Transformer also looking good in the same race, a light day and a dying breeze favouring the early finishes I think.

In the most racing awards, no surprises the the places are dominated a bit by Piedy's and sr26's with their respective nationals, but an old favourite still comes out on top with Fast Company doing 13 races, Loose Unit, Party Piedy, Yosemite Sam, Jagged Edge and BMW YachtSport all doing 10 or more races, not bad for winter.

And so to the 'my class is faster than your class competition, of the big four, well it's the 1020's this month followed by the Stewarts, 930's and 88's. Of course the 930's would be a little higher if I included the modified ones, as usual, first column excludes and second column includes rum racing, classes with 8 active boats and 15 finishes for the month included.

Young 11 .8451 .8407
Elliott 1050 .8439 .8432
Farr 1020 .7806 .7713
Stewart 34 .7757 .7789
Ross 930 .7586 .7649
Young 88 .7552 .7539
SR26 .7239 .7239
Lotus 9.2 .7019 .6986
Tracker .6490 .6490
Pied Piper .6487 .6487
Noelex 22 .6197 .6197
Reactor .6123 .6135


Briefly looking at where things have shuffled at the top of class or boat style rankings :

Ross 930's, Local Hero drops from the top three, Mean Streak moves from 3rd to 2nd and Hotdogger moves up to 3rd.

SR26's, on the back of a nationals win, Rattle N Rum moves up to 1st and Space Station drops to 2nd.

Pied Piper's, changes from Loose Unit, Suspect Device and Rat Attack to now be Woodstock, Rat Attack and Loose Unit. For Suspect Device, I guess saying their nationals wasn't the best isn't news to them, they've dropped to 11th.

40 Racing, Psycho Circus swaps with Akatea, and move up to 2nd

30 racing, Blackout regains her 2nd from Fun-N-Games

In the classics, Iorangi takes 3rd.


As mentioned earlier, finishing off with a table of what's been included in the month, the table show series, # of races, # of boats and # of finishes.

RNZYS winter 26 101 279
Piedy nats 8 19 147
BBYC winter 14 53 126
Richmond winter 12 62 107
RNZYS rum racing 7 43 78
sr26 nats 8 8 61
PCC rum racing 4 24 58
PCC winter 10 32 53
lbyc short handed 4 20 47
Akaroa winter 3 13 28
Weiti winter 4 27 27
PCC women's 2 14 24
RAYC winter 2 8 13
Multihull winter 1 10 10

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2005/2006 Season Summary

Well, it's season cross over time again, and time to review another season. My first thought, being the first summer I've not had a boat in twenty odd years, was that weatherwise, it looked to be the best sailing summer we've had in twenty years, back to the nice weather patterns that your great grandfather told you about and all that, minus those cyclones the met office promised us. Well, perhaps not quite promised, I think the phrase was statistically probable. I'm sure though, particularly thinking about April and the odd piece of meteorological unpleasantness last October and November, that in reality it wasn't quite as nice as it seemed from the comfort of a yacht club bar, and as is the way, certainly not what was in the brochures, yet again.

For RaceTrack, this month we have some data from a few more clubs come in, with Panmure, Naval Point (Christchurch), Otago Trailer Yacht Squadron, Late Taupo and Napier, so quite a few more boats, many being trailer boats.

There's also something of a shake up with the change of season meaning I drop summer 2003-4 out as now being too old, so if 2003-4 was a particularly good season for you, I fear there’s some bad news.

So, on to some statistical rambling. Firstly, a brief look at how much racing we had recorded this season and for the last couple of summers. Not much can be read into the table below, I think it says as much about the growth in clubs use of the web and how I've spent my time without a boat as anything, however it would be quite hard to conclude racing is less popular.

Click here to download Mark's full 8-page summary, including some very interesting tables and charts, as a PDF document >



January 06 - as seen by RaceTrack

January 2006, a fairly quiet month but with the summer season kicking back into full force in the latter part of the month with Bay of Islands Sailing Week, the restart of mid week racing and of course the many and varied club activities over the regional anniversary weekends so popular at this time of year.

For those poor souls who've stayed awake at nights worrying about whether January has more, or less sailing than December, well the answer is ... about the same, 141 races and 1,366 finishes, so a touch fewer races but about 200 more finishes in those races, now you can sleep relaxed in your new-found knowledge.

Lot's of activity in the 'new boats' front this month, mainly due to BOI, in total some 39 boats with the new Cookson 50 Wingz, after an excellent regatta, at 6 and the 'recently featured on crew.org' Rob Shaw creation Animal Biscuits at 32. Nijinsky comes in as #2 in the 88's and not forgetting the most well known of new boats(?), Lion New Zealand at 62. A total of eight boats have dropped out, but I'm sure one or two will return.

Looking at the 'virtual performers' for the month, as calculated by a computer, this month it's "out with the Stewarts and in the the up to 26', the Farr 727 Mrs Micawber narrowly tops the list from the Tracker Comfortably Numb and the Elliott Crocodile. V5, on the back of a good BOI is the only boat over 35ft to make the top 12. Looking at it purely as a % above your history, the Reactor Umeme 11 tops the list 18.6% from Crocodile 16% and Markon'e 8%, whilst in terms of ranking change, it's the modified y99 Mr Wolf with a 22 place jump narrowly from the Buck's Beach sr26 Mercinary.

Best one off performance for the month comes from the up to 26 w/l series race 12 with Umeme 11, 28% above history from Viva in an 'interesting' race 1 from BOI, 27.9% while at the other end, all I can say is "did making it the the crew.org home page doom Jive Talkin in BOI race one?"

This month, the turning up award, no surprises is shared by two boats, Future Feedback and Zingara, both boats do a heap of sailing, 12 races for January and this month, a dozen boats did 10 or more races. Looking season, 1 October to date, it's :

1 Fast Company 48
2 Scarlet Fever 41
3 V5 40
4 Prism 39
5 Bobby's Girl 39

This is clear evidence to Berin that modified 930's are more fun to sail the class ones.

As usual, fanning the flames of the class fire, this month my favourite four rank out as :

Stewart 34 .7961 .7842
Ross 930 .7820 .7731
Farr 1020 .7718 .7756
Young 88 .7492 .7494

but reverse the order in terms of commitment with boats actually turning up and sailing, the Stewarts, disgraceful, I should ban them from even being counted ...

Just looking briefly at boats by style, a few changes this month :

In the 50's, Wingz comes in at the top, V5 moves to 2nd, then Sportivo, Pussy Galore, Formula One, Georgia and Hydroflow.

In the 40's, Bobby's Girl still holds 1, Akatea goes to 2, PBF then Psycho Circus and Power Play, Revs slides from 2 to 7.

In the 35's, it's still Higher Ground from Jive Talkin with The Guarantee pushing Force 11 from 3rd.

In the 30's Extreme as ever is at one, Blackout and Fun-N-Games each move up one and Drinks Trolley drops to 4.

In the sports boats, Animal Biscuits pushes Helter Skelter out of 1st with Custard Truck still 3rd from Manic and 3 t750's.


And to finish off this month, a even lighter entertainment item on which boat wins the 'most consistent performance award, as judged by ten or more races since 1 October, smallest variation in the boat's rated performance per race ...

1 Limerick
2 McDell Marine
3 Resolve
4 Rawhide
5 Ready Steady


Bay of Island Sailing Week 2006

As analysed by RaceTrack.

Division A >
Division B >
Division C >
Division D >
Division E >
Sports boats >

These files are saved as .xls (Excel) spreadsheets. Note that the less data RaceTrack has on a boat, the more it will be in the middle for a series. This will account for some of the differences between this, and official race results, e.g., Wingz wouldn't win under RaceTrack because almost all the racing to make up its rating came from this series.


Dec 05 analysis:

Well, to a belated December summary and the racing looks good, well good from the comfort of the RaceTrack computer anyway and today is one of those spectacular summer days that makes you forget that it ever rains when you sail. December's summary brought to you courtesy of Kevin, who told me I was slacking to have not done it sooner and to pull finger.

Not surprisingly, the summary counts are down a bit on November with 154 races, 1,170 finishers from 395 separate boats, that's a little over half of November.

On the new, or returned, to RaceTrack scene, we have eleven new boats with Attitude at 19 being the top multi and the Farr 11.6 Smokescreen at 182 the leading keeler. Curiously, mainly I think from the Sir Peter Blake memorial regatta, the new boats comprise four multihulls, six boats from the tropic of Whangaparoa and the Farr 727 Green Pepper from the blind sailing group. Meanwhile, dropping out are a total of 25 boats, notables being Ranger and three 1020's.

This month, most arithmetically impressive in RaceTrack's eyes computes out to be the Stewart 34 Patari from the Monday evening series, sailing 6.77% above her history and gaining 50 places for the month. Honourable mentions also go to the Tracker Bushranger, second, and Prism third. Definitively proving that RaceTrack and it's calculations can't be trusted, it seems to have developed a Stewart fettish this month with eight Stewarts in it's top 20. For best sailed above it's history (as a percentage) this month, the top boat is Prism, 6.92% and using ranking change, it's Patari up 50 places. All this on top of giving top spot to a Stewart last month as well, very suspicious.

Looking at individual race performance, best individual performance this month would go to the Young 11 Road Runner in race 1 of the Sir Peter Blake Memorial regatta, 13.5% above history, whilst the Lotus 9.5 from Wellington managed 16% above her history in the most recent of their poets rum races.

On the water racing the most this month with 12 races is shared by the Farr 40 bobby's Girl and the Ross 930 Scarlet Fever, with Share Delight, Patrician and Prism also coming in with ten or more races, isn't there a law against this much sailing?

Looking at my favourite four classes for stirring and possibly showing that RaceTrack isn't totally deluded with S34's, this month the 1020's, after a few near misses, pass the S34's as quickest boat with the 930's also gaining fast. As usual, first rating excludes rum racing, second includes it.

Farr 1020 .7837 .7849
Stewart 34 .7791 .7775
Ross 930 .7781 .7717
Young 88 .7611 .7576

Looking very briefly at styles and classes :

Big boats, pretty quiet with KM, Becom and High 5 in the top three spots.

In the 40's, again Bobby's Girl, Revs and Pretty Boy Floyd hold 1, 2 and 3, with Power Play moving up four to seven.

In the 35's, it's again the usual suspects with Higher Ground, Jive Talkin and Force Eleven holding 1, 2 and 3.

For the 30's, it's still Extreme, Drinks Trolley and Blackout with very little changing down the rankings.

A small change in the 25's with Junk Yard Dog still holding one, but Grunty Chicken and Real Deal now sharing second.

In the multi's, I'm now getting myself in more trouble with Sundreamer relinquishing fourth to Timberwolf, X-Factor, Silveraider and McMoggy holding the top spots.

As with most groups, the sports boats have not much change at the top, still Helter Skelter from Custard Truck and Manic, looking forward to seeing the new shaw design Animal biscuits in some results.

1020's, again, Hard Labour, Max Headroom and Future Road, but expect a change next month

88's, Still 88 Proof at one, but Panama Jack agains swaps with Triple 8, getting her two position back.

930's, Local Hero, Breathless and Hotdogger jumping two to 3 with Rockweld and Grunt Machine each sliding back one spot to 4 and 5.