Welcome to

VSK Team Challenge

the home of virtual team racing

1. TEAMS
   1. Minimum number of members per team is 3. There is no upper limit, but the recommended team size is 5-6.
   2. There should be at least one admin for each team, but not more than 50% of the total team size.
   3. 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), the name of the country the team is representing 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.
   4. 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. A team getting too big may at any time divide in two teams.
      3. A team that no longer want to participate, has less than 3 members, or at the beginning of a WTRC has not registered any races since the previous WTRC and haven't planned new races in the near future, will be deactivated.

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. Teams are encouraged to show up at the ITBYC chat on Thursday nights for ad hoc challenges.
   4. Races between two teams paired through any official event outside ITBYC, are valid for submission at VTC. External walkover wins shall not be scored.
   5. 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.
   6. 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 publically available courses of standard TR type. The wind strength (F3-F6) shall be different for each race.
   5. The boat type to be used is ACC.
   6. VSK5 "Mode" should be set to "Tactical".
   7. VSK5 rules mode should be set to "Automatic".
   8. RULES
      1. The races shall be sailed under The Racing Rules of Sailing, including Appendix D for VSK.
      2. Parts of the boats are only the hull and mast.
      3. If the VSK Umpire gives a penalty according to RRS 11, 12, 15, 16, 18 or 31, it shall be assumed there was contact.
      4. If there was alleged contact not visible in both replays, contact shall only be assumed if the right of way boat got a significant disadvantage, except when VSK gives a penalty for the rules listed in SI 3.8.3.
      5. Information derived from the VSK umpire (ISAF panel) with regards to luffing rights, zone entry status and what tack a boat is on, shall be considered correct.
      6. If requested by the other party, a screenshot of the protest hail shall be provided.
      7. If the teams disagree on the timing of a hail for RTT under rule 20, the hailing boat shall provide a screenshot as evidence.
      8. Any protests shall be submitted in the challenge topic under active challenges within 24 hours after the race. The protest shall be open for input from any contributor, even interested parties. The outcome of the protest shall be taken from a representative from the VTC race committee if available. Otherwise by a majority decision based on input from non-interested parties.
      9. You should not interfere with another boat during the first minute of the prestart, including preventing a boat from gybing.

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.