'Weight on the Wire'

Originally posted by tmoore The GP14 handicap has stayed the same even though the new FRP ones are clearly faster!!! Same goes for solo i would guess.

So what does that tell you?

Originally posted by Flick-Flock Don'f forget that the PY returns are for all boats from that class, so the returns from the latest boats with the new developments will be diluted by returns from the older boats. So the PY wouldn't completely reflect how much faster the newer boats may be going.

There would of course be a lag; but the graph does show 45 years so I think the developements have time to filter down.

What that graphs shows is either all the development in one-designs has given little or no speed improvement or that those classes have become h'cap bandits over time.

The development classes have shown a resonable improvements but I suspect a big chunk of that improvement has been through significant rule changes rather than development within the rules.

Edited by Guest#260

Don'f forget that the PY returns are for all boats from that class, so the returns from the latest boats with the new developments will be diluted by returns from the older boats. So the PY wouldn't completely reflect how much faster the newer boats may be going.

To answer the original question

16 stone and 6'1"

 

 

 

 

 

 

or did I miss the point??!!??

Originally posted by Guest#260 Originally posted by Neal_g fair point rick but the fireball handicap has dropped in the past ten years was 991 probs about 7 years ago and now its down to 982 which is a fair drop for an established class It would be interesting to see a historical graph plotting PY against years for some of the established classes; I wonder if anyone has the data for such an exercise? I suspect it would be depressing to see how little PYs have dropped given the development effort especially as new materials and sailcloths have become available. Especially for some of the classes that have had significant rule changes like n12, Merlin & Phantom.

New sail cloths and materials have changed the speeds of most classes. The Yardstick system gives reletive speeds between boats, therefore the handicaps don't reflect all the speed changes that have taken place. The most obvious change was from cotton sails to man made fibres, but as most classes changed within a fairly short period of time (less than 10 years, certainly) they all got quicker.

What you would see, though, is that if you took a 1965 Enterprise straight out of the box exactly as she was new in 1965 and raced her against a 2009 one, the 2009 one would be far faster, dispite the Ent having one of the most stable handicaps.

You would probebly even find the same thing with an early 70's Laser, as the sail does seem to have been improved, and the controls are far better.

Of course, this also partly explains why the handicaps of development classes have changed less than you'd think, as they are getting faster against a moving scale.