Speed Matters in SKA. Why?

[dealmaker]

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Originally Posted by FishDancer

This thread has gotten me thinking about the perception of the SKA among other anglers. The basis of this string was a question regarding how speed affects the outcome of SKA events. While I respect everyone's posts and opinions, I rely upon data/facts to make decisions. As such lets look at some data regarding the affects of speed upon teams fishing any tournament:

Situation: SKA event with teams with boats that can run WOT 70mph, 60mph, 50 mph and 40mph. Flat calm sea conditions so teams are not restricted by weather (although this rarely happens). All teams check out and run 60 miles to the fish. They each make 3 moves during the day each move is 20 miles and at the end of the day they each need to run 60miles back to the scales. All teams ran a total of 180 miles in a one day run (this is at the outside of reasonability based upon real life weather and actual distances needed to be run).

MILES
60 20 20 20 60 180
Minutes
MPH70 51 17 17 17 51 154
MPH60 60 20 20 20 60 180
MPH50 72 24 24 24 72 216
MPH40 90 30 30 30 90 270

Summary of data:

Team 70 MPH was first on the spot by 9 minutes ahead of Team 60 MPH, 21 minutes ahead of Team 50 mph and 29 minutes ahead of the Team 40 mph. The moves during the day show little advantage between the teams -- with the largest advantage being 13 minutes between Team 70 MPH and Team 40 MPH. The run back has the same advantage as the check out run. In total Team 70 MPH gained 34 minutes over Team 60 MPH and 62 minutes over Team 50 MPH.

The real life implications of this hypothetical data, in a real time SKA event, with actual sea and weather conditions are even less striking. Lets assume the distances were cut in half - so would the benefits to Team 70 MPH so their advantage over Teams 60 and 50 become less and can be overcome by any one of the team's fishing ability (ie catching bait, setting lines, pulling in lines, etc) and even Team 40 MPH's disadvantage of 116 minutes becomes a manageable 58 minutes. So in the end....the data reflects that speed is a factor but by no means is it determinative of the outcome. Listed below is the 2008 top 10 finishers on the SKA Professional Kingfish Tour by boat and motor type; 3 Contenders, 2 Fountains, 2 Yellowfins, 1 Wellcraft, 1 SeaCraft and 1 Donzi with 5 Mercury, 3 Yamaha and 2 Evinrudes. A good mix of boats and motors...the data again reflects fishing ability outweighs speed as represented by boat or motors.

2008 SKA PRO Tour Final Standings

boat size motors points

CONTENDER 27 YAMAHA 256.17
FOUNTAIN 38 MERCURY 254.64
YELLOWFIN 36 MERCURY 247.3
WELLCRAFT 35 EVINRUDE 244.72
CONTENDER 33 YAMAHA 243.62
DONZI 32 MERCURY 242.42
FOUNTAIN 38 MERCURY 242.21
SEA CRAFT 32 MERCURY 240.53
YELLOWFIN 34 EVINRUDE 235.56
CONTENDER 31 YAMAHA 234.01

Jeff
FishDancer
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http://www.FishDancer.net

FlashDance- thanks for the thorough response. Very useful. I agree with you about using facts as the basis for analysis and decision.