The Challenge

As can be seen in this particular thread, yours truly has challenged the two best sailors of Second Life to a race... without gestures! The fools, fearing public shame in the forums, have agreed to public shame on the waters. Har!

I thought that perhaps a special boat would have to be designed to ensure a fair battle, but that would take time and planning and just won't do. Instead, I'll agree to an honor system that all involved will not use their function keys and button HUD and whatever other pansy gesture system they may have developed.

This challenge is not limited to the two named specifically. I now make this an open call to anyone who'd like to prove their superior boat handling skills.

There's no trophy involved here, just plain ol' bragging rights. And maybe a t-shirt that says "I kicked Faykin and Myrrh's asses."

Barring any conflicts with the initial targets of this challenge, I present...

Date: Sunday, August 13, 2006. That's this Sunday, fools!
Time: 2:00pm SLT
Location: Gallow's Point, Cristabel sim
Format: Five or Six races, with one throwout
Course: I came up with this one in five minutes, without actually having sailed it to know if it was a decent course. So perhaps tonight I'll come up with one that has been more thoroughly researched, but I had to put something up. Behold the Volcano Run!



Faykin Odets and Myrrh Massiel.... I will see you in my wake.

Pacifien,

Woah, there.... As the challenged party, I do believe that I get to set the terms of the meeting, a la Bobby Fischer.

So, with that in mind, I put forth the following terms that I require if I am to accept your challenge.

Venue: Someplace with pirates.

Course: Someplace with pirates and volcanos.

Number of Races: We shall continue racing until participants no longer wish to participate. Any party who retires because of "Real Life" or similar excuses shall be ejected from the event by other parties flinging random objects at the offending party. Any party who retires because of "Partner" or similar excuses whall be ejected from the event by other parties flinging random sex toys at the offending party. Any party who retires because of "It's not fair" or similar excuses shall be ejected from the event by other parties flinging cheese and crackers to go with that whine at the offending party.
Protest committee: There will be 2 possible formats for protest resolution, to be chosen by the alleged agrieved party.
1) A circle will be drawn in the sand. All participants shall enter the circle of doom, and begin hacking, slashing, and bashing one another with whatever weapons they chose to use. Bonus "Grand Cohones" points shall be given for humorous or frivolous weapons, e.g. bubble wands, flaccid bovines, prim hair. The last participant left standing inside the circle will be proclamed "GOD of the circle", and sacrificed on a pyre. At this point, since all parties involved in the protest have been either hacked to death, bludgened to death, or sacrificed on a pyre, the protest shall be considered resolved.
2) All partipants shall sit in a circle, and begin drinking grog. A pun topic shall be selected, and puns shall be made by all partipants until each participant has ejected grog from their noses by stifiling laughter. At this point, all participants will probably be too drunk to care about the results of the protests. If this state has not been achieved, the process shall be repeated until this state IS achieved. At this time, the protest, which no one cares about anymore, shall be considered resolved.

Throwout races: The only things that are allowed to be thrown out during the races are empty beer cans. Oh, and whiners. Whiners have to walk the plank. And comely wenches. All comely wenches must be thrown out so they can be rescued by me.

If these terms are acceptable, I will come up with others to excuse my poor performance in this race.

--Faykin

Pfft. Only way you'll see me in your wake is if you are throwing out comely wenches to distract me. Shade your eyes when you look over your bow, and you MIGHT see me sailing over the horizon in front of you.

--Faykin

Having been through a similar exercise once before, barring unforseen circumstances, I can fairly well predict that Pacifien will win this Challenge, primarily due to its short notice.

I haven't the time to practice at all, much less learn the course in advance of showing up and sailing the first race Sunday afternoon. That might not be an issue if all competing parties are on the same footing.

More significantly, though, there's a substantial mental/reflexive adjustment when switching from manual trim to gestures and vice-versa. The last time I sailed competively, just before the current gesture system was introduced, I'd concluded a six-week undefeated record in both major regatta series of the time, sailing under fully manual trim. The introduction of the Channel Islands' performance issues alongside the new Tako gesture controls made it clear that, in future races amongst top sailors, a well-managed set of gestures for trim to key points for sail would mean the difference between competing for second place and contending for first place - so I set out to make the transition.

My performance immediately plummeted. It took me a solid month of regular practice, a couple of hours 3-4 times per week, to build my gesture-driven boathandling back up to the level I'd been at when fully-manual. Eventually, I'm convinced that Faykin's and my analysis has demonstrated itself to be correct - that on average, gestures give an edge in accuracy and predictability which makes the difference between first and second place in the day-to-day imperfect circumstances under which most of us sail in Second Life. Under perfect conditions, however, gestures still aren't quite as fast as manual trim, due to chat/listen lag and the pop-out/pop-in mechanism used to hit key points of sail.

I mentioned having been through this once before. About halfway through our transition to using gestures, Pacifien and Static challenged Faykin and I to an impromptu race, manual trim versus gestures. The results at the time were inconclusive - Faykin and I were extremely rusty, both having just returned from hiatuses from SL sailing, and neither of us having yet fully mastered the transition to gesture-driven trim. Pacifien and Static soundly won the first race, Faykin and I barely eeked a victory in the second, but I think we just got lucky. Having clearly not yet gotten the hang of gesture-reflexes, I attempted to sail a circuit under my old manual trim mainstay - and I was just as rusty there, totally out of practice.

This weekend will probably go much the same. Since this is a fully no-gesture race, I predict a lot of missed spinnaker and centerboard commands, especially due to hasty typographical errors. I'm not backing down from this Sunday's Challenge, but I'll go ahead and suggest a rematch sometime in October, to give Faykin and myself a month to get back into practice with manual techniques, free from SLSF Cup series obligations.

That new olfactory reception in 1.11.3 is fantastic! I can actually smell the stench of fear.

Excuses? Already?

Pffft.

Time to break out the cheese and cracker shooter...

<puts Myrrh in his sights>

--Faykin

Meesa likeney cheesen crackers!

I want to be a comely wench!!! Please? May I? Please, please? I'll wear a really low cut wench-like smock... giggle

Oooh yeah! You DEFINATELY qualify as a comely wench, Kitty!

Ok, skippers, who volunteers to throw Kitty out of their boat?!?!?!!?

Man, now THAT's gonna be a challenge, finding someone willing to throw you out of the boat...

--Faykin

...yes, it's big, but the forum's shutting down anyway...