America’s Cup

Up front for those that don’t read long messages. The 2022 AmCup sanction fees are now due. Still just $30! Thanks to those that have already sent in payment.

The AmCup rules have not changed substantially since Al Hotard conceived the idea in 1989. We’ve added 7 events from the original F1ABC events. Twelve years ago the bonus point system was changed from increments of 3 (18 entrants for +5 points) to increment of 2 (14 entrants for +5 points). The mission statement has remained the same:

“The purpose of the America’s Cup Competition is to foster the development of flyers and models across North America in the FAI F1 (free flight). This coast-to-coast competition requires flyers to attend multiple contests each year in the United States and Canada in order to win.”

As the demographics of our sport has changed the entry level trend over the last 10 years has dropped and in the last two years further reduced due to Covid impacts on traveling. We are now seeing less Covid travel related contest attendance impact and hope we’ll see a resurgent in 2022. The great aspect of our sport despite the entry decline is there is still outstanding FAI FF competition across the USA and Canada.

With that said, an ongoing discussion within SCAT is, “Has the Mission Statement been fulfilled or even become out dated”? Should we change to a goal of recognizing the best FAI FF flyers across the USA and Canada and eliminate the multiple site requirement?  Again this year the club has decided to maintain the Mission Statement as is. However a change in the scoring system was approved with the approach to “do no harm”. The new scoring system was developed and analyzed by rescoring the 2021 contest results with various changes to the 1^st through 5^th point allocation and bonus point allocation. The new point system would not have changed the top 5 results (except to break a tie for 5th place in one event). It did tighten up the scores in the top 5 and many changes in the lower placements.

The first change is the allocation of points from 1st place of 25 points to second place was 5 points is now 2 points. For 2022 the rule reads:

4) ……….1st place 25 points, 2nd place 23 points, 3rd place 21 points, 4th place 19 points and 5th place 17 points

The second change is the bonus points will start with 5 entrants, before it was 6 entrants. The 2022 rule reads:

5) Extra “Bonus” points are scored on the number of contestants in an event:

1 to 4: 0 points

5 to 6: +1 point

7 to 8: +2 points

9 to 10: +3 points

11 to 12: +4 points

13 or more: +5 points

These changes we believe will make the medium size contests (5 to 10 entrants) more attractive to those wishing to place high in the AmCup. For example, with the old scoring only the largest contest (>14 entrants) does placing second receive 25 points. Now a second place in a contest with 7 flyers will get 25 points.

One other significant change was made for F1E. Due to the current limited flying sites for F1E the number of required flying sites flown has changed. The new rule is:

4) ………  For F1E only. The total score may include three scores from one site only and the fourth score must come from a different sites.

We also simplified and clarified the number of required rounds to be flown. Now the same for all events.  New 2022 language:

1a) The events composing the America’s Cup are: F1A,B,C,E,G,H,J,P,Q and S.

1b) All contests must be scheduled and conducted in good faith for a minimum of 5 rounds to be scored. In the case of extenuating circumstances and noted in the contest results, contests with 4 completed rounds will be scored. Completed Fly-Off rounds are counted in the completed round total.

Jim Parker

SCAT AmCup Administrator