This article will be mainly to interest to those who run North American Master ILCA events.
In some NA Master ILCA events an age penalty is applied to each race score. The intent of this system is to try to create a level playing field when all age groups start together. Below is a table that shows the additional points sailors receive for each race based on their age groups:
* Apprentice (30-45) 4 points
* Master (45-55) 3 points
* Grand Master (55-65) 2 points
* Great Grand Master (65-75) 1 point
* Legends (75 and over) 0 points
At the last ILCA Master Worlds there were 2 sailors over 85 and there were suggestions that there maybe should be a Super Legend age group.
Sailwave has features to score the Master series. Most of us use the following method:
* Create a scoring code for each of the groups (A, M, GM, GGM & L) and assign the number of age penalty points multiplied by the number of races to the code. Keep in mind that once there is a drop race, you need to reduce the race multiplier by one. Another possibility could be using the Sailwave penalty points method, but then after each race you need to update all the Master boats instead of just the 5 codes.
* Add an extra race after all the scheduled race numbers and set this race to non-discardable. This race will contain the age penalty scoring codes. Change the name of this race to “Age
Penalty”
* Increase the number of races before a discard by one. This will cover the extra age penalty race.
At this point you can score the races with the NA Master age penalty points system.
However, many times the Masters are part of a larger fleet in a regatta with other classes. I found that you can configure Sailwave to have a Masters category without needing to enter duplicate race results. In addition to the above steps:
* Use the Sailwave Alias feature to make a copy of the fleet that contains the Masters. In my example the ILCA 6 fleet contains the Master sailors.
* Use the “Set competitor field” option to change the Division field to Master for the new aliased competitors. You can accomplish this by selecting those sailors with “Alias>0” filter.
* Delete those sailors that that are too young and are not Master sailors from the Aliased copy.
* As above create an Age Penalty race and two starts for just the ILCA 6 and Master sailors.
* Use the Sailwave feature to create an additional scoring system and assign it to the Aliased fleet and the fleet that was the source of the Aliased fleet.
o The Aliased fleet needs two overwrites: increase the number of drops by one and assign the age penalties.
o The Aliased source fleet needs two overwrites: increase the number of drops by one and assign all the age penalties to zero.
At this point you can score the regatta including the Master fleet without duplicating data entries.
This might sound very confusing, but it works and shows the power and flexibility of Sailwave. Here is link to the mock-up Sailwave file and the results:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cs7fcqx4nu5m84s664t53/h?dl=0&rlkey=41ls12soi53st735tcp2z6hpm
