2 January

Originally posted by Merlinboy Also just because the fleet is bigger doesn't mean the standard of sailor is any better. They should all score a 1st at the event to make it fairer.

Except it wouldn't make it fairer: to my mind it would make it less fair. I admit I haven't read the SIs to see exactly what they are doing, but this is how I'd approach it... There's no perfect solution for this but consider...

This is handicap racing, so what we are interested in is not so much who beat who but in the performance versus the fleet as a whole. This gets a bit statistical: sorry.

If you graph up corrected times of a handicap race you'll find that, *very* roughly speaking what you get is a skewed distribution curve with a range of about 25% of finishing times. I don't recall where the peak normally is, but probably in the region of 40% along.

People who finish halfway down the fleet should be scored there, so if there are 200 entrants for the series then the chap who finishes 10th out of 20 in his fleet should get 100 points, and so should the girl who finishes 75th out of 150 in her fleet. Assuming that all the fleets are reasonably consistsent in ability, which given large numbers isn't a bad call, then that's the scoring method that best reflects the places for the main body of competitors.

OK, that's fine, but what happens at the ends. This is where it always gets sticky, and inevitably people pay more attention to winners scores than the main body of the fleet, even though I suggest that the reverse is probably more important for the majority of sailors....

Consider a fleet with 20 starters and a fleet with 100 starters...
Given the distribution curve we can say than 10th and 50th are equal performances: surely there's no argument about that. Again if we look at a distribution curve it tells us that first in the 20 boat fleet is equivalent to between 1st and 5th in the 100 boat fleet and any of those scores are equally supportable. If you want to score all winners with 1 point then you score the finishers in the 20 boat fleet 1 point, 5 points, 15 points etc, and the effect this has is to give a greater value on winning small fleet races than large fleet ones.
Another way of doing it might be to say OK, lets say that 1-5th in the large fleet are *all* equivalent to 1st in the small fleet (which is supportable statistically), and score 1-5 one point, 5-10 two points etc. In many ways this is the fairest method, but would lead to considerable objections from the folks who finished 1st against 5th...
If one were really going for the ultimate reflection of performance one might reject places completely, and award points equivalent to the % of mode peak of curve) finish time in each race. That would mean that the lass who finishes a mile ahead of the next person in her race would score better points than the guy who was one second clear of the pack. This would be, in my opinion, by far the best way of scoring large handicap events, but I freely confess I wouldn't want to explain why to the competors at the briefing!

None of this stuff is easy!

I'm just sailing the events for fun.  In a radial I have no hope on handicap against Phantoms/Streakers etc but I just don't worry about it.  As long as I'm sailing well against other lasers in the fleet I'm happy.  (and forgetting my watch really didn't help me at GGP)

I kind of agree with the last bit of your post Russ. I saw a link to enter the sailjuice thing so followed it through. Didnt take long. But it did strike me at the time as a bit unnecessary. I had already presumed that all entrants from the 4 events making up the series would be automatically deemed to be entrants to the global warm up series anyway (to make it look as popular as possible). So perhaps there is some confusion there, or maybe there are going to be special prizes for those of us who took the time to enter the sailjuice thing separately. Who knows.

I see your point Jim, truth be told unless everyone is racing everyone there is no 'Fair' Way of doing it.  I just think the way its caluclated now hardly encourages participation if you sail in a class thats in the minority.  Its hard enough to beat a Phantom as it is, but with this system it IS impossible.

Fair point Jimbo, although not sure we are completely to blame for that one either.  You kind of explained one of my early posts allot more eloquently then i did mate.  The races were on completely different courses in apparently different winds.  You could almost argue why not merge the results from the bloody Mary with those of the Grafham grand prix using the same format.  The results would be just as meaningful.