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    Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 4:29pm
Originally posted by turnturtle

 I don’t doubt that statistically accuracy can be validated as better now than then, however does that neccessarily translate to better quality of racing.... 

I read H2’s last post- great stuff and a good read.  But out of that prose, nothing relating to the change of calculation formula, or indeed the handicap itself, suggested this played any part whatsoever in his enjoyment of the day.... therefore could it not be better than those boats closest enough ‘in category’ were actually racing for line honours, rather than some retrospective calculation?

I dunno ... but my point is that that would actually be a qualititive experiment to genuinely carry out before writing off the concept altogether as ‘unworkable’.  

But hang on - if it was not for some form of Handicap system I would not have been out sailing against 100+ random people on Draycote. It was the handicap system that enabled me to turn up and take part, otherwise it was just a random days sailing on a lake in the midlands. However flawed the system is it enabled me to have a great days sailing!
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Posts: 2538 		Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 4:17pm
Originally posted by Sam.Spoons

I think we all set our own personal PN bands, I subconsciously race against the Phantoms, Finn, D-Zeros and Solution as they are all within a few dozen points of the Blaze.

Quite - and would you be comfortable for your club committee setting those bands for you say, annually?  Even if it meant those boats on the peripheries of what becomes the clubs ‘new normal’ flip-flopped a bit between groups to find which worked best for them?  

I’d predict that give it 5 seasons or so to settle down and even the flip-flop classes would neutral out as they seek traditional PY down the road, or the owners change boats to something offering closer racing.... thus leaving clearer bands of like-for-like boats actually racing together, thus offering a club racing / light hearted alternative to travelling for proper racing... something I personally think the UK dinghy scene is crying out for.


Edited by turnturtle - 26 Nov 18 at 4:26pm
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 4:16pm
A classic example of how the handicap system as it currently stands screws things up, is the relationship between the Blaze and the Phantom which in our world can rub along quite nicely scratch, indeed they were pretty much scratch until too many inland wallers saw the bandit capability of the Phantom in light weather, this was going on when I first started taking notice of all things handicap.
Yet a Blaze will absolutely destroy a Phantom once it's well powered and racked up, again weather driven, no amount of handicapping is going to alter that, yet they did just to placate the pondies. and along with a few other key favourites getting the slow treatment the Blaze now enters Bandit territory itself, a victim of selective handicapping. In a banding system they'd race together scratch.

Edited by iGRF - 26 Nov 18 at 4:41pm
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 4:06pm
I think we all set our own personal PN bands, I subconsciously race against the Phantoms, Finn, D-Zeros and Solution as they are all within a few dozen points of the Blaze. It's a bit like my Raceboard days, the big strong guys had an advantage in a blow, the lighter sailors in the light (with the exception of the odd pumping expert) but there's no question that the sailor makes the most difference. 
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Posts: 2538 		Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 3:56pm
 I don’t doubt that statistically accuracy can be validated as better now than then, however does that neccessarily translate to better quality of racing.... 

I read H2’s last post- great stuff and a good read.  But out of that prose, nothing relating to the change of calculation formula, or indeed the handicap itself, suggested this played any part whatsoever in his enjoyment of the day.... therefore could it not be better than those boats closest enough ‘in category’ were actually racing for line honours, rather than some retrospective calculation?

I dunno ... but my point is that that would actually be a qualititive experiment to genuinely carry out before writing off the concept altogether as ‘unworkable’.  


Edited by turnturtle - 26 Nov 18 at 3:58pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 3:52pm
Originally posted by H2

I actually learned more in 5 hours of that then months of winning at SCSC each weekend.

What I'm getting at, is do you know what went wrong in the race you came 62nd? Where did you lose those twenty places? Or conversely where you gained them in the 42nd? Did you actually perform quite well in the 46th, making big gains on each leg, but just got a bad start or an unfortunate shift on the first beat? Can you correlate your performance with your result?

Those tend to be things that decide how rewarding I find the racing. In handicap racing the nuances of that get lost in the noise of different boats strengths and weaknesses. I often just end up looking at boats in my class... which makes me think, I'd be happier racing against a handful of my own class at a small open or in club racing and have less obstacle to get around!

If the new scoring, or data analysis could tell me more about how I was performing and where really I was doing well or not, then I might see more value in it.  

Your results above, which system are they from?  Which score (GL or Dynamic) better reflected your performance and why? 




Edited by mozzy - 26 Nov 18 at 4:01pm
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 3:43pm
Originally posted by turnturtle

Originally posted by Sam.Spoons

Making line honours the aim in a mixed fleet would involve banding at a fairly narrow level or boats with a PN at the top of the band would have little hope of a result. The speed difference (to take an extreme example) in our junior fleet between the Optimist and Laser 4.7s is fairly huge. Likewise between a GP and a Merlin. I'd say a PN difference of 100 points would be more than enough to discourage the slower boats in each band from turning out. I should point out I'm not a 'winning is everything' type (just as well given my results these days though I've done my share in the past) but it's nice to know you might be in with a chance of the odd decent result if everything comes together.

Let’s apply real world observations to that:

Kids classes - typically sailed in class in many clubs.  the club is either a Tera club, Oppy club, mirror club, cadet club etc.  Or if it really is a hotch-potch, do yourself (and your kids) a favour and move to one with some consistency.

Kids sail Oppis, Teras, Open Bics or (insert your kiddy class of choice here) progress to Toppers (etc.) and then to Laser 4.7, so I'm not sure what your point is? But if you confined it to Oppi, Tera and Open Bic the differential would be quite small but it doesn't matter which of those you put up against a Laser 4.7 it's going to get mullered.

Merlin and GP - not in the same category surely?

Agreed, 1133 against 980 is way over 100 points. So how many points should a performance band span?  

You also reference PY in the discussion... over time that metric would be lost, so the context loses relevance.

Again not quite sure of your point here, WRT handicaps the accuracy of the numbers will improve over time as the stats accumulate.

Even so, you are saying 100 points....  is a £500 sh*tter from the nettles not 100 points slower than the latest Laser with XD kit and a carbon top section?  Yet that £500 sh*tter can still outperform the new one given the right sailor of the right weight pointing it in the right direction.


The biggest difference between the fastest and slowest Laser on Sunday was 10% so equivalent to 108 points, how much of that comes down to the boat and how much to the sailor? TBF though that last boat was probably not a £500 dog (but the one that came first was fully bimbled......) so you may well be right there.




Edited by Sam.Spoons - 26 Nov 18 at 3:44pm
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Posts: 750 		Post Options Post Options   Quote H2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 3:35pm
Originally posted by mozzy

Originally posted by H2

So assuming that in this parallel universe of weird people that do find handicap racing fun - why not at least test out a different way to do it? Seems worth a pop to me!
No one's saying it can't be fun. But I have plenty of fun just sailing in the harbour. And sitting on the motorway really isn't fun. So what about these events warrants driving 3 hours, and paying a couple of hundred quid to do? 

The amount of people there is a big selling point. I've done these things in the past solely for that, and likely will in the future. 

But from my experience, the on the water racing experience isn't that great. It doesn't matter how it's diced up after the fact. I don't get that manoeuvre by manoeuvre, gust by gust feedback on my performance that I get from being involved in a class fleet race. So what extra value is there for me? Why is this a better future for the sport than fleet racing? 

H2, how did you rate your performance at the dash? What were the good bits and bad bits? How do you know where you lost and where you gained? Can you point to where that's reflected in the results? Which scoring method reflects your performance better and why? 

Mozzy I competed in the four races on Saturday and came home in 42nd, 43 and 46 as well as a 62nd (if I recall) out of 110ish boats. I did not race the pursuit on Sunday as I needed to get home. I have no idea if that is good or bad but as the top ten sailors are probably rock-stars then I reckon that is a decent enough outcome and I was the first H2 home in each race. What I enjoyed was the busy start line and number of boats that I was racing around and having to be more strategic about when to tack and what approach to take on the lay line etc. I suspect that these events would be a bit dull in a RS800 as you are just racing the clock but in a H2 I was surrounded by Aeros, blazes, other H2s and some very annoying Comet Trios who had weird gybing angles. It was really close racing and I actually learned more in 5 hours of that then months of winning at SCSC each weekend.
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Posts: 750 		Post Options Post Options   Quote H2 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 3:29pm
Originally posted by turnturtle

I do get that in an emerging fleet, mixed class racing can provide a wider context which adds depth and meaning.  I’m just not convinced that the wider context need be formed from a numeric calculation... and certainly not by over-complicating said numeric formulation away from what has become widely accepted.  I’m certainly not a proponent of mandating which boats people sail - far from it.  I just think grouping up and ditching PY would be a more worthwhile experiment than dealing further into the data-driven abyss.    

I rather liked your comments about beating Blazes over the water.  I took from that comment a sense of achievement, and a little bit of cheeky competition between two boats not that dissimilar that they can’t be raced side by side in light hearted racing.  I doubt the numbers and timings on spreadsheet made any difference to you in that moment of joy....  

Handicaps will always be flawed. In broad brush terms how ever well I sail on a drifter day I will always struggle to beat a Europe and well sailed Solos and similarly when its windy they will struggle to beat me. Over a series it evens out and even over a 45 minute race it can even out when sailing on a pond as wind strength can vary significantly. This is why we tolerate handicap racing because we know that over a ten weekend series the best sailor will probably win once all these variables are evened out. 

Now if someone has a way of dynamically adjusting the handicap so that on light wind legs I get a boost and heavy wind legs I get a penalty then actually that would make it more interesting to me because the winner would be the person that sailed the best race regardless of conditions. Of course there is a risk that with more complexity and the "black box" nature of such an approach that people would cry foul but with time it should be possible so that the outcomes are more interesting.

You are right that my pleasure at beating some Blaze's over the water derided from the fact that we are similar boats but they are supposed to be faster and yes you are right that having a dynamic handicap would have removed that pleasure.....but what happens if the little GPS unit at the base of your mast had your position clearly shown so you knew whether that last lift or header had cost you one, two or three places? To me that would be a good development.
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Nov 18 at 3:22pm
Originally posted by turnturtle




[QUOTE=iGRF]]However given what we have now, how would you feel about ditching the numbers altogether for a series - instead racing in groups- be that based on perceived ability or perceived boat speed around a course?    First across the line is the winner....  no ifs, no buts.  
That to me is a worthy experiment to seek out qualitative feedback from.... especially for something proporting to be purely about bringing folk together, whatever they choose to sail.



And let the weather decide, we've talked about this before, close handicap banding, I have to say I'd prefer entering a handicap event that didn't have idiots in much faster boats constantly coming at you hailing starboard for a temporary mark rounding advantage as they then shoot off totally the wrong way..
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