py failing

Not so much now....

[runs and hides]

as an example of that i would say moths going from being stupidly narrow to flying.

personally i think that it doesnt really matter what py you race off because club racing for me is just a laugh. i treat every club race as a training race and if i can be bothered and can talk parents round i will go to an open to see how much i have improved if at all but i like just hanging around at the club with mates and we all sail in lasers so py doesnt bother us much but even the guys who sail other classes (3ks, mirrors, fevas and anything else that turns up) realize that we only race for fun and it isnt to be taken seriously.

having said this we do make py returns.

"I don't know if it can happen, but I think it should.

The handicaps should be decided by a committee with the power to override the returns system. They should use the returns PLUS the performances from the large Winter handicap events, the Bloody Mary, Tiger Trophy etc. The figures should be changed every year and announced at the Dinghy Show.

Take the Merlin fleet as an example: the top new boats are competing in large handicap events such as the Bloody Mary off a handicap as determined by the folks who club sail in their older boats. It's completely flawed. I believe a class's handicap should reflect the performance of the very latest(best) boat in that class, not an average of all the boats. If the class then wants to recommend classic handicaps to older examples then all well and good.

There are certain inescapeable  truths which everyone knows, for example: Merlins, Fireballs, Phantoms have a good handicap, Lasers have a bad handicap. There will be many other examples I'm sure. So why they can't just be changed is beyond me.

I can't see any harm in changing them A LOT either. If it goes too far and all the Merlins come in the bottom half of next year's Bloody Mary then so what? It can be changed back straight away. If everyone knows the handicaps are fluid and will be changed yearly then it won't cause any harm, just add another level of interest and controversy to handicap racing. "

Dennis et al,

The major problem in using measurement for mono dinghy's is that (as I see it)you (somehow) have to factor in the fact boats plane at differet wind speeds and on different points of sail.

We don't really consider cats "plane" in the same sense and so don't need to worry about it.

Consider a 49er that planes very early down hill and a Flying 15 that will plane in about a F6 (I assume).  Upwind the 49er will plane, the FF won't.  how do you factor that in?  We did not put a windspeed factor into SCHRS as we decided we could rate it via righting moment and that we would create OOD's and organisers more problems by asking them to declare a "wind factor" which is subjective. 

The 49er is SO much faster when on the plane and this (say) happens in 9kts of wind downwind and 12 upwind.  The FF never planes upwind, so how do you rate these to boats ?  The FF will plane downwind and so you DO need to consider that it does plane.  Can you calculate the max hull speed of a planing hull.  I'm not sure but I guess not.  

I'll not bore you with all the problems I think there would be, but rest assured, I'm yet to be convinced a SCHRS type formula could be applied to rating all mono's.  maybe for all boats of a similar type (so powerfull asym's say.)