Welcome to

VSK Team Challenge

a public service, open to all.

1. TEAMS
   1. Recommended number of members per team is 5-6. Minimum team size is 3. There is no upper limit.
   2. There should be at least one admin for each team, and preferably not all members of the team.
   3. This articly is put on hold until after WTRC 2010. It will limit the way teams are compiled.
   4. To sign up with a team, create a new topic in the forum for team entries. The topic should have team name as title and must at least include a list of team members (first name and boat name) and a specification of who are team admins. Then a VTC administrator will create a database entry for the team and give admin privileges to the specified skippers. All team members must there after register individually in the VTC database and assign themselves to the correct team in this process (or if they already have are registered, just edit their profile to be connected to the right team). A team admin must approve each team member in the database.
   5. Use the same forum as linked in the article above if you want to form a team, but are looking for members. Or if you just wan't to offer your services in hope to be picked up as a member of an existing team.
   6. CHANGES
      1. All changes regarding a team must be posted in the respective team topics in the forum, linked in the ranking table, as well as being reflected on the team profile in the VTC database.
      2. If a skipper is moving from 1 team to another, he must wait 1 month before he can sail for the new team (unless he has never sailed for the original team). A skipper can change team a maximum of 2 times per year.
      3. There is no other restrictions on getting new members to a team. A team may even get a new skipper on the fly from the public lobby if they are missing a skipper for a scheduled race. Please note that this skipper must be formally signed up to the team. This can be done after the race, but then right after! Please point out if you wan't him to be a permanent part of your team, or if he was just a reserve for the night (formally he has then joined the team and left the team). PS! This "reserve" has to be aware of the fact that he can't sail for another team as long as he is officially a part of your team (or 1 month after he has left your team).
      4. If a team is devided in two teams, then there is no suspension. The original team keep position and stats.
      5. A team that no longer want to participate or has less than 3 members, will be moved to the bottom of the ranking with status inactive.
      6. A team that has not sailed any VTC races (walkover losses excluded) during the last 6 months, may be moved below all active teams on the ladder.

2. CHALLENGES
   1. A team may challenge any other team.
   2. The challenge doesn't have to be formal. Races can be organized by any communication meduim, but informal challenges does not influence the requirements for formal challenges (through the request procedure).
   3. Races between two teams paired through any official event outside ITBYC, are valid for submission at VTC.
   4. CHALLENGE REQUESTS
      1. There is a dedicated forum for challenge requests where each team has a forum topic.
      2. A link to each teams forum topic for challenge requests is included in the ranking table.
      3. The challenge request topic of a team should be tracked (by email) by at least two members of the team. Simply click "subscribe to topic" at the bottom of your challenge request topic.
      4. Any team can request to challenge any other team.
      5. A team may accept a challenge request right away, but has the right to wait for what is longest of
         • 1 week from requested challenge
         • 1 month since last accepted challenge request
      6. If multiple teams request to challenge the same team before the team has accepted, then the forced priority is as follows (1 takes precedence over 2 etc.):
         1. All other teams have priority over the team which was the last to challenge the relevant team through a challenge request.
         2. A team ranked below the challenged team has priority over a team ranked above the challenged team.
         3. A team with rank closer to the challenged team has priority.
         4. A team posting the request first has priority.
      7. A request is officially accepted when either
         • the requested team is accepting the request
         • any of the requesting teams or an administrator point out that the request period is due (ref article 2.3.5).
      8. When a challenge request has been accepted, a topic for the challenge should be created in the forum for challenges. This topic should have "team name of challenger" vs "name of other team" as title. Use the topic to communicate in order to schedule the race. The topic should later be used for posting of race results.
      9. If there was more than one challenge request, a team that did not get to challenge has to resubmit the request in order to make it valid again.
   5. A challenge that is a result of a challenge request should generally be completed within 1 month. If it's not, and one team want to claim a walkover, this request should be posted in the challenge topic in the forum.

3. RACE FORMAT
   1. The teams may decide to race under any conditions, but unless they agree on anything else, the following instructions are default:
   2. 3 boats from each team participate in the races.
   3. The challenge shall be sailed as best of 3 races.
   4. The challenged team shall choose 3 different courses among the courses available for download on the tools page. The 3 courses should be of the same type (either straigth, box or bowtie - not a combination of them), but with different wind strength (F3-F6).
   5. The boat type to be used is RC44.
   6. VSK5 "Mode" should be set to "Tactical".
   7. VSK5 rules mode should be set to "Automatic".
   8. The races shall be sailed under The Racing Rules of Sailing, including Appendix D for VSK.

4. RESULTS
   1. An admin of the winning team should submit the result of a challenge in the VTC database. Make sure you don't report the result more than once, so communicate this task clearly between other team admins! The results should be also posted in the forum for challenges asap after the challenge is finished. The topic used should have "team name of challenger" vs "name of other team" as title, and the entry should include participants on each team, point score and winner of each individual race. Feel free to post some words to describe the action on the water. PS! This is the same topic as used for scheduling of the challenge, if this exists. This way the rest of the community will get notified of the new result.
   2. RANKING (ladder)
      1. When a challenge is over and the result is reported, an administrator will update the ranking. The ranking is not based on the rating points, but is using a ladder concept:
      2. The winning team climb 50% of the initial ranking difference up the ranking.
      3. The losing team drop 1 position on the ranking.
      4. A team that is definitly responsible for a failure of performing an accepted challenge (for example due to general absence or no-show), drop 2 positions on the ladder. The other team move up as if it scored a win, though no rating points will be exchanged.
      5. The new ranking of the winning team will be calculated before the new ranking of the losing team.
      6. The team rankings change only if the initially lower ranked team won the challenge. If it was the other way around, only rating points will change.
   3. RATING
      1. The ranking table also includes a "skill rating". The accuracy of the rating is dependant on number of races, so take it with a grain of salt.
      2. The rating points are calculated as follows:

         You begin with 1600 rating points. Your rating points will increase when you win a challenge and decrease when you lose a challenge.

         Rn = Ro + Points
         Where:

         Rn is the new rating.
         Ro is the old (pre-race) rating.
         Points = 32*(S-WP), rounded to nearest integer, but never 0 (either 1 or -1)

         S is the score in the challenge.
         For a win, S=1
         For a loss, S=0

         WP is the expected score (Win Probability), which is calculated from the following formula:
         WP = 1/(10^(DR/400)+1)
         DR equals the difference in ratings (DR = OpponentRo - YourRo).

         If you win a race you will receive between 1 and 32 points. The loser will have their rating reduced by same amount of points as the winner is gaining. You will have more points if you beat a better rated team than if you beat a worse rated team.