Customizing Your Regatta Strategy

Background

While the Fleet Settings page provides a great deal of flexibility in setting the strategy for fleet management and scoring of your regatta, the preset scoring options on the Regatta detail page are often all you need. Before delving into all the options here, do consult the help document on "Setting the Multi-Fleet Strategy..." document to establish if one of those options is all you need.

Accessing the Strategy Details

On the regatta detail page you will see the "Fleet Management" button which may initially be disabled (gray) until you select a preset for the "Scoring Method" other than the default "Single Fleet" preset.

Note: Selecting the Custom preset will immediately take you to the strategy page as if you had tapped the "Fleet Management" button.

Fleet Management Settings

The fleet management page allows you to control several aspects of your regatta:

1. What names should be used for the fleets
2. Is the regatta in one or two "series" or phases? Often the first series is for seeding, or is a longer qualification stage, while the second series is a number of "final" or "championship" races. For example, the standard HMS 2022 has a seeding series of just one race, followed by a final series of all the remaining races. The SHRS norm is to have a longer qualification series lasting most of the regatta and finish with a final (championship) series where fleets are fixed based on qualification.
3. How are the first fleet assignments decided for the seeding/qualification series
4. How are subsequent fleet assignments set for seeding/qualification and for final series races
5. How many fleets will be used
6. How many boats should be promoted for Promotion/Relegation regattas
7. How are throwouts calculated in scoring the two series
8. Will seeding/qualification races be included when breaking ties for the regatta

The Options:

Regatta Preset: This allows you to pick a new set of preset options in more detail than the regatta scoring presets.

• Single Series: No seeding or qualification races are needed
• P/R - No seed races: A promotion/Relegation regatta where skippers are manually ranked in the skipper list and no further seeding is required to set the first fleets.
• P/R - 1 seed race: Promotion/Relegation following HMS 2022. Seeding will be ended (by regatta staff/scorer) after one race and special Race 2 fleet sizes will be used per HMS 2022
• P/R - Multiple seed races: Promotion/Relegation where as many seeding races as desired can be run before commencing Promotion/Relegation racing with fleets set initially based on those seeding results.
• P/R then Gold/Silver: Initial qualifying races will be run using promotion/relegation with race 1 fleets set using manual skipper ranking. When qualification is ended by scorer, static fleets will be set based on qualification results and will be named "Gold, Silver, etc.)
• Odd/Even: No qualification or seeding is used and manual seeding of skippers will be used to set the initial fleets. After that, where there are only 2 fleets, odd finishing places will be assigned to A Fleet and even places will be in B Fleet for the next race. If more than 2 fleets are requested, the SHRS method of cycling skippers through fleets will be adopted.
• Simple Heat Racing System: Qualifying race fleets will be set based on SHRS guidelines cycling skippers through fleets based on position in the last race. When qualification is ended the fleets will be static, based on qualifying results. NOTE: Special throwouts are defined for the qualification phase, and this will automatically bring up a qualifying throwout page for confirmation or adjustment.
• Qualify to Gold/Silver: This is virtually the same as SHRS except that throwouts during qualification are simpler, and follow regatta throwout settings

Fleet Names: This will bring up the current names for the fleets. Depending on the preset chosen it may be "A Fleet, B Fleet etc." or "Heat 1, Heat 2 etc." or may be fleet names that you choose to type in based on your regatta needs.

Seeding/Qualifying Series: This block of setting will appear whenever multiple series are involved. It is thus not shown when the regatta preset is "Single Series", "P/R No seed races" or "Odd/Even"

• Initial Fleets: The first race fleet assignment is based on the order of the skippers in the skipper list. Selecting "Random" will randomize the skipper list immediately (don't select this if you have spent time sorting the list already!). "Manual" assumes that you will put the list in approximate rank order before adding the first race when initial fleets are assigned. The first skipper is put in A Fleet, Second in B Fleet. For two fleets the 3rd ranked skipper goes in A Fleet etc. The initial fleet assignments are shown in the skipper list once the regatta strategy is set. They are not always valid after the racing has begun due to unique fleet assignment rules, and subsequent fleet assignments can be shown and shared from the Fleets page in the scoring tab.
• Subsequent Fleets: after race 1, seeding/qualification fleets can be assigned using several different methods. They can be kept the same (Static); set randomly for each new race (Random), set based on finishing position in the previous race (Cyclic); or determined by promotion/relegation rules and fleet sizes (Promotion)
• Number of Fleets: defaults to a reasonable number based on the number of skippers but can be set as needed.
• Number to Promote: Requested here when fleets are set to Promotion
• Throwouts for Seed/Qual: In calculating scores for the seeding/qualification stage that are used to set the finals/championship fleets there are 3 options: No Throwouts can be used for short seeding series. Use Regatta Throwouts is a simple option to have the same throwouts set for qualification as are used for the overall regatta (e.g. 1 throwout every 7 races). Special Throwouts for Seed/Qual allows different throwouts to be used for calculating rank at the end of qualification/Seeding to set the final fleets. It is not used in the scoring of the regatta as a whole.
• Seed/Qual throwouts for Regatta: After seeding/qualifications and finals are complete, and the regatta is being scored, there are 4 options for the way that seeding/qualifying races can be thrown out for overall regatta results. Use Seed/Qual Throwouts will throwout seeding/qualifying races independent of the final series races using the special throwouts defined for seeding/qualifying purposes. For example if a seeding strategy allowed for 1 race to be thrownout for seeding purposes, this option would throw out that same race for the regatta regardless of finals race scores. Include Races in Regatta Throwouts is a simple option where seeding/qualification races are included with finals races for calculating throwouts. No Seed/Qual Throwouts is even simpler, and ignores seeding races for the calculation of throwouts. Finally, Special Throwouts for Regatta allows for unique situations where the seeding/qualifying races have special throwout rules not the same as the regatta as a whole, and not the same as used for  calculating seeding/qualifying results.
• Include Seeds in regatta tie breaks?: When seeding and final scores have different ranges as in HMS, this option allows seeding races to be ignored when calculating regatta tie breaks.

Final Series: This block defines how the final series will be handled and includes a few similar options to seeding. Throwouts for this series are those for the regatta and are set from the regatta details page.

• Initial Fleets: This option is only shown when there is no seeding or qualification (after seeding/qualification the final series fleets start based on the results of those races). When required, the first final series race fleet assignment is based on the order of the skippers in the skipper list. Selecting "Random" will randomize the skipper list immediately (don't select this if you have spent time sorting the list already!). "Manual" assumes that you will put the list in approximate rank order before adding the first race when initial fleets are assigned. The first skipper is put in A Fleet, Second in B Fleet. For two fleets the 3rd ranked skipper goes in A Fleet etc. The initial fleet assignments are shown in the skipper list once the regatta strategy is set. They are not always valid after the racing has begun due to unique fleet assignment rules, and subsequent fleet assignments can be shown and shared from the Fleets page in the scoring tab.
• Final Series Fleets: after seeding/qualification fleets can be assigned using several different methods. They can be kept the same (Static); set randomly for each new race (Random), set based on finishing position in the previous race (Cyclic); or determined by promotion/relegation rules and fleet sizes (Promotion)
• Number of Fleets: defaults to a reasonable number based on the number of skippers but can be set as needed.
• Number to Promote: Requested here when Final Series Fleets are set to Promotion