Much was made in the Munich commentary of how "easy" (ahem) it was to
win from lane 5 or 6, and how futile (and/or heroic) crews' efforts were
from lane 1 or 2. What sort of a nonsense is that? They go to enormous
lengths to ensure split-second start and finish timing, and rules exist
to try to ensure that the boats are pretty similar ... but the pond
itself turns the whole thing into a lottery.

On May 11, 5:11 pm, Henry Law lawshouse.org> wrote:

Wind is something technology can't change yet.
Sometimes big events have to be canceled at the last minute, do you
think it would be better to stop racing at Munich?
Obviously you try to choose best regatta fields, where fairness is one
of most important criterium of choice, but it's not the only one.

The solution is only to do more WC races so that there are multiple
opportunities to race in fair and good conditions, but you see that
even with only 3 WC races many nations do not join some of them, due
to economic, training or travelling factors.

What would you suggest?

Henry Law wrote:

I've seen none of the Munich racing, but have on occasions made similar
condemnation of the sheer farce of multilane racing in cross-wind
conditions, & of the naive nonsense of pretending that 8-lane courses
make racing more fair & the idiocy of pretending that it's OK to seed
the supposedly fastest crews into the obviously fastest lanes.

If they already know so much about who's fast & who ain't, why not save
on everyone's travel & regatta costs by letting them do time-trials at
home & send in the times to a central committee appointed from on high
to fix the results in some pleasing & PC fashion?

We have too much hand-wringing & "What can we do-ing" in this soppy,
technically averse sport of ours. We can do all sorts of things to
resolve this problem. The only problem in their acceptance will...

"Henry Law" lawshouse.org> wrote in message
news:1210518690.28803.0@proxy00.news.clara.net...

And why are the boats in lane 1 or 2 - because they were crap in previous
rounds when wind conditions were not unfair. It's not some random lottery
and no effort was made to explain this, the viewer will have been left
feeling that GBR were lucky as most of their boats were starting in lanes 5
and 6. You have to ensure that you win every race, every other strategy is
entirely foolish. The Munich course with the prevailing wind as a direct
tail wind is situated in the best possible orientation.

"Carl Douglas" carldouglas.co.uk> wrote in message
news:g07ao3$m97$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk...

Carl they do. It's called the Seeding committee and in big events the heats
will be seeded.

Christopher Anton wrote:

What you say makes sense if the poor conditions were encountered after
some of the heats had been held. If - as is often the case, though I
don't know about Munich this year - the prevailing wind blows in much
the same way for days at a time, then the results are slanted by the
assignment of boats to lanes in the heats.

On 12 May, 07:41, "Christopher Anton"
NOSPAM.blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

"Henry Law" lawshouse.org> wrote in message
news:1210540609.29451.0@proxy00.news.clara.net...

But the heats will probably have been seeded too.

On May 11, 6:34 pm, Carl Douglas carldouglas.co.uk> wrote:

I'm afraid that would be totally contrary to the Rules of Racing Byelaw to
Rule 33

2.5 Local Conditions
The course must be sheltered from wind as far as possible. If not, there
must be no natural or artificial obstacles
(such as woods, buildings, structures) in the immediate neighbourhood of the
course which might cause unequal
conditions on the water.

Don't ask me? I've never understood why.