Good one Damo .
Glad I'm not competitive - well, only against myself, and even then I don't care if I win or lose, as long as I buy myself a beer at the end of the day.
The impromptu gunfights that are springing up when the forecast is good seem like a fun way for a bit of friendly competition, not too serious or complicated. Bragging rights and beers, not sheep stations.

Hi, GPS crew as a wavesailor hoping to get back to speed/ slalom because of the invention
of GPS units I tend to agree with Kaleb don't over complicate it.Peoples PBs should only count on race day not past sails otherwise where does the handicapping stop ? Maybe divide the cost of people's kit by their speed? or their weight by sail size carried ? Sailboarding allows the individual the freedom to select the gear that works the best for them in varied conditions the result should maximum speed/ fun for the individual

We should also remember that we've got some of Australia's top sailors here in TAS doing GPS/Slalom and we need (no compromise) events like these for these sailors to race against themselves and continue to hone their skills and hopefully improve. By racing alongside these guys, others will see how their sailing compares and, when these sailors go to state and national events, like a lot of them do, then you'll also get to see how they do at those events and perhaps get some better idea of the level of competition.

I've got to mention here that Izaak flew to Melbourne recently for the iconic Beach-to-Beacon event and won it with over 50 of the top Victorian sailors competing. Then we have Kaleb who won the coveted, inaugural Freerace event at GI and Karen who won the Women's National Slalom title. The Tassie Speed Seekers also won last years Australian GPS TC event (and placed second in the world).

So, while some may not be playing for sheep stations, there is a fairly high level of sailing happening here in TAS! Once again, if you're not really bothered about the racing, then you don't have to do it. However, if you're keen to improve your skills and see how you go against others, then get involved, the more the merrier!!

Interesting comments everyone. These are my thoughts for including GPS as part of WT state titles.
Have a GPS comp at every round of the state titles, plus racing which counts towards state title.
I like option 1 where the combined score of 5 categories is equal to one race.
However I do agree with Kaleb that this is going to be time consuming to get a result that equals just one race??
In addition to the 4 state rounds we hold extra GPS comps state wide that count towards the state titles.
We already have 4 rounds of racing around the state on the WT racing calander. To get everyone together at the same location for extra GPS comps is going to mean a lot of travelling for everybody. I think it would be better if the competitors can pick any location. This might bring some tactics into it on where best to sail. Lock in a day or have it over both days on a weekend. Have 5 of these perhaps, which will give 5 extra race results.
Just added a few more comments, hope that makes sense. Cheers.

Ok! Initially the thinking was rather than just present a format to run with, we would see if there were any ideas out there that people had that may enhance the way we run 'official' WT GPS calendared events. We're not talking about the local or state run 'gunfight' impromptu fun event.

Initially we had two scoring formats presented and we wanted to get feed back on which people preferred, two things have come out from that.

1/ Event results will be calculated by tallying all the category results together to achieve a combined score. Ranking for the event will be from first place with the highest score to last place with the lowest score.

2/ In the background at WT headquarters each event will be recorded using the individual category rankings. This method will be used to calculate the overall GPS winner from multiple events and also combine with slalom to calculate the overall rankings.

There was a lot of support for a handicap system, although this could help to make the events more friendly to the less competitive entrants there are too many downfalls and contradictions in trying to implement such a process. The PB system would only work if it was using a sailors PB for the event location. We do not hold these statistics on record and would be too hard to verify for it to be a worthwhile proposition. In the end it is deemed too penalising for the highly ranked PB sailors, as pointed out in the given examples.
Please let it be noted that a handicap system has not been fully ruled out for future use, it just requires more investigation and personal conversations with those that have the ideas, rather than on posts where it is impossible to nut out details and make compromises. (especially to find a formula for female competitors)


The other issue that was up for debate was location. It was decided to run the events at a set location. This would create a level playing field for all competitors. There is also a lot of support for an open event where competitors register and then select their own place to go sailing.
Both of these options may be used, this is something that needs more investigation.

This is where we're at! Hopefully those looking in from the outside that have no interest in this type of event have gotten a better picture and aren't quite as confused as they were when trying to read through the garble that has been posted. Don't be scared, even the simplest of things are quite complicated when you try and unwrap them.