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Statement on World Team Racing Championship national citeria
The WTRC is one of the biggest virtual team racing events around. Lately there has been some muttering within the vsk-community about a national criteria that was introduced after the 2010 WTRC.
As of the WTRC 2010 eligibility to race for the VTC is conditional for eligibility to race in the WTRC. The VTC introduced a national criteria teams must comply with.
Therefore the WTRC now demands teams represent a country. The regulation is described in the VTC SI §1.3 as follows:
1.3 NATIONAL CRITERIA
1. Each team shall represent a country.
2. All members of the team shall be citizens of the country the team is representing, except when a member is approved according to article 1.3.3.
3. The VTC Race Committee may approve use of an international member under one of the following premices:
* The international has been a member of the team at least since 2009.
* The country the team is representing does not have enough VSK sailors in order to line up a full team.
* The country the international member is citizen of does not have enough VSK sailors in order to line up a full team.
4. The teams may use a maximum of 1 international member on the water at a time.
The background of the new rule was to stop a possible trend of changing international team racing from club teams which it has used to be, to elite teams. At times, some people wanted to create a new team which consisted of the best skippers from already existing teams. This would have made their team much better than others, the possibility for other teams to competitive would drop to zero. Unless other teams do the same... as it was perceived they would, it would lead to select small amount of teams being competitive.
It is believed by the VTC racing committee that team racing is much more interesting for the VSK community if all teams feel they can be competitive and many would have a chance of winning. It is much better for team racing to have multiple teams with a realistic chance of winning the world team racing championship than only a select view teams fighting for it.
Many options were discussed, but most of them were found too complex and too hard to "police". So finally it was decided to introduce a nationality criteria rule.
In addition a rule to define a transfer window for skipper wanting to change team was added to avoid having sudden team changes before an event. Both rules basically are simple and clear.
As a member of the itbyc, vtc race committee, long time team racer, vsk-player and last but not least enthusiastic and loyal member of Team Europe I have heard snears, remarks, speculations and all. I've seen mailing lists clogging my desktop and endured endless debates. So, for all to take notice for once and for all, here is my own personal take (that means from here on it's my personal opinion and i do not represent anybody but myself. If you agree with me do it quietly. If you do not agree with me then please rip my head off and not somebody else's :)
While reading, remember this "At the high seas and in front of a jury you are in gods hands...." and though I am in the VTC race committee I am not the jury, you'll have a jury possibly different in every protest you'll possibly
have to deal with when moving on the fringes of the international criteria ...
So let me answer the questions i'm asked again and again and again ...
Why?
- Prevent opportunistic skipper transfers. ( Do not switch teams to improve a team's chances by leaving prior teams in the dust.)
- Status of a world championship in a team sport. (As in Football (us= soccer) countries become world champion, not FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, FC Bayern, Arsenal or such. You may hate Denmark becoming EC or Oranje being vice WC.. just don't say it at loud when i'm around.. )
- Expect any attempt at opportunism to be countered by further regulations and at least grumbling within the authorizing organization. (As alternative consider swearing at the umpires over a couple of beers at the bar in the yacht club where your bartender is going to be the umpire in your next race.)
Thanks goes to all the skippers that worked hard to try and combine, bribe and persuade players to leave their teams for better opportunities as well as those that left their teammates.
All the others are reminded once more that if you are in a team you better work your heart out, to respect your teammates affords, would you want to stay in a team with you as a member?
If you really have to sacrifice loyalty and need to switch team, do it before the season, but not before clearing why you would switch.
Citizen?
Either by blood right, or by place of birth right or both. You can inherit citizenship from your parents, you can be citizen because you were born in a country or because of either reason. Countries laws differ on the matter. Also some countries allow dual citizenship.
Europe: generally by blood right. lately birth right was added, some dual citizenship allowed
US: generally by birth right. Citizenship of other countries disavowed when becoming a citizen.
Basically, if you would be issued a passport that country sees you as a citizen. Residents are not citizens. (aka Welsh, Scottish, English are UK -citizen)
(Naturalisation is another means to become citizen. Edit: team member suggesting dutch could naturalize to german... )
Country?
Teams represent a country. There are no limits. (mind you Scotland, Wales, England are no countries... the UK is)
(Countries have governments that issue passport, constitutions and ambassadors, have a seat in general council of the United Nations u.o. Edit: team member paying for to many lawyer bills. )
International teams?
Are at the mercy of the VTC Race Committee as that "may" rule those teams eligible as per SI 1.3.3
Increase your chances by making sure the following applies to proposed international skippers
- Member of the same team since 2009 (so literally before 31.12 but since it is a can and not shall I reckon the 2010 seasons started September 2009 so from before September 2009 you may expect no problems)
- Not enough sailors in the represented country, can be a reason. Yet make sure the international members also come from a country with not enough sailors.
- Do not ever move the team to another country for the sole reason to make S.I. 1.3.3 stick.
Basically this is for VERY old teams. Or for VERY small countries to combine their resources. Big country skipper should forget about international teams, instead create new or join existing national teams.
(Fryslan province of the Netherlands ca. 500.000 citizens is BIG, at least sailing wise.. and you can buy a passport too )*
What to do?
Well it only concerns the VTC and the WTRC. The other 97% of time spend on the water Team Europe will continue to sail in any combination in training and events where permitted.
Links:
http://www.itbyc.org for info on ITBYC or VTC
http://vsk-aus.com organizes 2011 WTRC
http://teameurope.fixodernix.de for Team Europe
Cheers,
Theo
(Admiral, Capt. Team Europe)
* Sorry but Fryslan joined the Netherlands as province many, many ages ago and is not a country.. your passport would not be valid...
itbyc
itbyc.org invented team racing on virtual seas as counter measure against skipper ignorant of RRS or ignoring them, added beer consumption as measure against stress involved with network and computer malfunctions. ITBYC was founded during the first year of VSK1 a decade ago... famous for random team races (just a couple of skippers bunched together in 2 teams, reshuffling teams for each race.) ITBYC and or its members have closely cooperated with Duran Dubois and later Nadeo during the development and testing of every single version of VSK since VSK 1. ITBYC is the Initiator of team racing solutions in modern virtual sailing simulators. Pivotal for the introduction of the team racing mode in Virtual Skipper. When the first international events were held, ITBYC allowed teams such that it would not unearth teams from other clubs, ITBYC so carefully avoided competing with clubs and remains so. ITBYC is a knowledge base for anything and everything to do with team racing. Finally ITBYC is the authorizing organization for the World Team Racing Championship.
VTC
VTC is the ITBYC's platform to organize races for fixed teams, inducing friendly competitions in a formal setting. (bring your copy of the ISAF RRS). Hosted at itbyc. The VTC's Sailing Instructions are an adapted version of appendix D of the ISAF RRS. The WTRC race organizers include the VTC appendix D for team racing in the regulations governing the WTRC. Eligibility to race in the VTC determine eligibility to race in the WTRC. A team participating in the WTRC is prone to protests if it races in a constellation that is not eligible to race in the VTC.
Team Europe
We're an international team and I think the oldest team around if not one of the 2 oldest teams around, and probably have most miles gathered team racing by a long shot for years to come. Team Europe considers itself one of the most active if not the most active team in the vsk community (Apart from loyalty to the team, we basically drink more beer, then beat opponents but that's another issue. ) Except when the gloves are of... (redacted by the team)
We do not like this international criteria at all. (That's the understatement of the century . [edit: the team])
However we even have bigger issues with skipper abandoning what at some time must have been friends... so in the end yes we rather are being forced to abandon our friends for just some races
(estimated maximum of 30 races in WTRC- or VTC-context vs a total of 500+ in any other context any given year [edit: team member noting some needs some meaning]), then see other friends being abandoned by other friends for what boils down to opportunity... in the process maybe destroying a team. (BTW we hold friendly races Mondays starting @ 21:00 CET & Thursdays starting @ 22:00 CET where we welcome anybody abiding RRS and capable of drinking beer at the same time. Ah and we do need UK, dutch, citizens or any three citizens of any european country that wants to join us. Train with us, yet do official races as your own or any viable sub-division as it is applicable )
Admiral
VSK-player since demo of VSK 1, participated in first match racing tournament. Decided that virtual on-line sail racing on the internet can only be totally warped which can't be helped simply because of natures physics**. No automatic umpire can be like a human umpire. Team Racing allows tactics and strategy that combined with, averaging natures influence across the fleet, produces the most balanced and fairest conditions discarding any other formats. Itbyc is a natural solution.
** Im' not going to repeat so search the forums across the community for latencies, grafics clock, synchronisation, umpire, rules etc.. Basically only at a LAN party can fleetraces be fair. Matchraces can only be fair, if opponents have a 100% identic system and play an even number of races, one hosting even numbered and the other hosting odd numbered races... The same goes for team racing except there are more variables that can be made to counter each other on average depending on how the network is set up. Winning on virtual seas (a computer jockey) makes no sailor, however a computer jockey "may" be a very good sailor too.
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