Classic Boat PY's

I would have thought that these clubs make returns for their season to the RYA (at least I hope they do) in which case the results from the big races will be included in their data, and will presumebly affect the recommendations they make on their forms. But the big races should have no more influence than that, as they show how the boats behave in one particular location on one day with one set of weather conditions. Puddleducks SC have a whole year of conditions, and 100 versions of Puddleducks SC all over the country have lots more locations in which to collect data. Just make sure your sailing sec sends in returns if they use the system. Or volunteer to do the job for him or her!

Originally posted by Rupert Having sailed Solos with both 1960's wooden battened sails, and modern sails, I would say the changes have been far greater than in the Firefly or the Enterprise since man made fibres came in.

Dunno, don't forget with modern battens and sail materials you don't get that awful "batten poke" at the inner end of the battens on Enterprise sails that you used to as soon as they had the slightest bit of stretch. That's a big advantage for soft sails that Solos don't get because they never had that problem anyway.

Originally posted by Rupert [QUOTE] The Solo handicap really hasn't changed? Fully battened sail technology must have increased the boat's speed enormously.

The Solo has had fully battened sails since the 1950s! While there are clever things you can do with fully battened rigs these days that they didn't know about back then,(see square top thread) they all rely on changing the sail planform, and the Solo is one design so that doesn't happen! I doubt that the advances in soft sails since then have been any less than the advances possible to the Solo one design rig.



Edited by JimC

 

JIM C said
"They can (and should) be fed into the results just like any other event in the organising club's return. But why do you think they should be a better platform than Puddleduck SCs evening series? The big events I've looked at haven't looked any more helpful than my club evening series in working out a meaningful handicap. Far less in fact because our evening series is many more races in many more conditions."

The original point I was trying to make was that bearing in mind that the main problem with the PY system is the lack of good and sufficient data going into it, events such as the Grafham GP or the Tiger trophy present the best opportunities to compare the relative performance of numerous different classes.

Most club returns simply can't and don't do this. Good old Puddleduck SC may for instance have a  'competitive'  fleet of Vagos (I pick this only because it has no history so I won't be upsetting anyone - yet). Also sailing are a few old Ents, Lasers, Twelves and Mirrors and even fewer Herons, a Europe and the odd Pico, Topper etc. Note - only the Vago is generally well sailed - all the others are sailed intermittently largely by people who largely 'join in' the racing rather than really competing. Don't tell me this isn't a common situation - I see it at several clubs around the country. The return for that club will be 'slewed' against the Vago because it's generally sailed more competitively and hence generally better - not because its genuinely that much faster than its currrent yardstick.  I accept that any Yardstick system will do this but don't accept JimCs assertion that the results of an event such as the Tiger are less statistically sound than an average club.

Yes the Tiger results are for one day and hence fewer conditions - BUT this year we had between F1 and F3 over the three Saturday races and last year F3 -F5 so in just two years we have covered it  - and over several classes. Take our fictional Vagos - the return from the Tiger sailed in a variety of conditions against sveral other equally competitive boats would surely be at least if not more valid than that from Puddleduck SC.

Finally how can anyone argue that the results from the Tiger (around 600 starts), The Grafham GP (again around 600) The Birkett (around 450) etc are not at least as statistically sound as returns from 90% of clubs.  By using a couple or more years results, the returns would be based on over 1000 starts for each event!

Anther important point is that most sailors will trust these returns - whereas those from some clubs for some classes are thought of as 'slewed'.

So again I ask why the results from these single (and in most sailors minds , most important) handicap events can't form the basis of a return to the RYA?

Edited by Hector

Hello,

finally got the computer back in one piece...

I've got to agree with Jim, there's nothing particularly wrong with the PY system.  Handicap will always be a bit of a bodge job and trying to make it 'fairer' is a dangerous road:  Just look at big boat sailing, IMS was supposed to be a properly scientific (!) handicapping system but after a fraught, politicky 15 years they're all back to a good old single number handicap system with all its warts....

PYs for classic boats is a can of worms, if you go on hull age or design then someone can stick a more up to date rig/sails on it and outpace the handicap.  I like the CVRDA system for Roadford of having to voluntarily declare on your entry how 'souped up' your boat is with the handicap being adjusted accordingly...

T