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GB Sailing Challenge - still confused
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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: GB Sailing Challenge - still confused
    Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 11:22pm
That's the point though. If class racing was genuinely valued then once you got a fleet to a critical mass the brakes would be off and more and more people would pile in.

Its precisely because building and in particular maintaining a fleet is like herding cats that I'm beginning to wonder whether a theoretical handicapping system that eliminated variables like weather, wind strength, boat design, sailor weight etc so it was much more like class racing would be genuinely more popular. With "every dog has its day" racing over the course of a season rather more people get to have a day when they go home with a big grin on their face.

After all, in the grand scheme of things, it matters not one jot how "fair" club racing is, what matters is how many people have fun doing it.
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Posts: 2538 		Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 11:02pm
It is simply like herding cats... against a back drop of grand parsimony.

Truth for me is that s bit of break from competitive sailing and just messing around on various toys from beach cats to paddle boards makes me realise the benefit of the clas racing that’s left... be that at a local club in a Laser or Solo, or something nicer with a few miles between the venues.
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 10:58pm
Sample sizes for evaluating complete races are pretty small for most classes, dividing that sample into laps/legs/wind strength variants seems unlikely to improve things?
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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 10:39pm
TBH I suspect every dog has its day is a big part of the appeal of handicap racing. If people really liked class racing it wouldn't be so difficult to build a fleet at a club and so easy for it to fall apart.

Edited by JimC - 25 Nov 18 at 10:39pm
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Posts: 305 		Post Options Post Options   Quote DiscoBall Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 10:06pm
I'm sure the gist of Peter Johnson's book Yacht Rating was that time-on-time was superior to time-on-distance, as it more simply accounts for changing conditions. Though it was written 20 years ago. 

Since then big boat racing (in the US & Europe) has been round in a giant circle, at no small expense, pursuing 'scientific handicapping' and seems to have pretty much ended up back at 'Every dog has its day'...

It sounds like an interesting experiment, but even if it was successful I suspect human nature would mean there'd still be plenty of whinging about bandits.  Wink

Not sure that yet more events taking people away from competing at their own club are actually a good idea for the health of the sport.
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Posts: 370 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Old Timer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 1:51pm
Originally posted by davidyacht

Originally posted by Old Timer

It’s good to see innovation. 

Let’s face it, the standard open circuit model is hardly booming. 

That depends upon the class of dinghy ... Solos, Merlin’s, RS200 are doing alright.

That is not that I am against innovation, if Handicap racing was made more credible I would have greater enthusiasm for it, rather than it being something that has to be suffered when the Sailing Committee put it on the calendar.

We have loads of classes and you quote a few, and even those are localised. 

The days of people dragging dinghies around to opens are behind us, costs and traffic have scuppered that b
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 1:47pm
Originally posted by Simon Lovesey


Originally posted by Peaky

Are you saying that handicaps are (re)calculated and (re)applied on a leg by leg basis accounting for wind strength, relative direction, leg length etc based upon a growing database of measured, real world, performance? A set of measured polars, used to create a constantly varying handicap that is class based but applied to individual boats as they experience the wind etc?

yes that is the aim

Thanks.
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Posts: 1345 		Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 1:23pm
Originally posted by Old Timer

It’s good to see innovation. 

Let’s face it, the standard open circuit model is hardly booming. 

That depends upon the class of dinghy ... Solos, Merlin’s, RS200 are doing alright.

That is not that I am against innovation, if Handicap racing was made more credible I would have greater enthusiasm for it, rather than it being something that has to be suffered when the Sailing Committee put it on the calendar.
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Posts: 349 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Simon Lovesey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 1:05pm
Originally posted by Peaky

Are you saying that handicaps are (re)calculated and (re)applied on a leg by leg basis accounting for wind strength, relative direction, leg length etc based upon a growing database of measured, real world, performance? A set of measured polars, used to create a constantly varying handicap that is class based but applied to individual boats as they experience the wind etc?

yes that is the aim
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 25 Nov 18 at 12:57pm
Sorry Simon, I don’t doubt the good intentions but this is just hiding behind buzz words like big data, algorithms, analytics and granularity. That is so generic it could be copied straight from Cambridge Analytica. It is very light on soecifics and doesn’t explain the fundamental basis for deriving the results.

Are you saying that handicaps are (re)calculated and (re)applied on a leg by leg basis accounting for wind strength, relative direction, leg length etc based upon a growing database of measured, real world, performance? A set of measured polars, used to create a constantly varying handicap that is class based but applied to individual boats as they experience the wind etc?
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