Is there a better way of setting an initial PY?

Agree there should be a better way. Trouble is, the wind changes, so a top gear lap would produce different results even with the same sailor. Racing the boat against similar boats, and swapping helms around, would give a better idea, I guess.

How true Bootscooter, it is the enjoyment that counts. Personally I cant think of an effective better way. However we have a lady at our club who went out and bought an RS Quba. This thing sails off 1220 which is ludicrous. Luckily she sails rarely and badly but in one race last week she beat me and a girl lightning sailor (who is much better than me) on PY. The Quba owner is probably going to give up sailing and sell her boat, fine, but to who! Any good sailor would thrash us all regularly on that PY.

It is the 'initial phase' that is the core of the 'new class' problem.  Locally we were encouraged by the then Commodore of the local club to get 'other' crews into the Icons in order to get a better 'spread' of results. 

Quite a few capable but occasional crews did race the boats in the year that followed - so far so good you might think.  The next thing we heard informally was that these additonal results cound not really be regarded as truly 'representative' because these crews would 'obviously' need an extended period of time 'to get up to speed' .... or were 'the wrong' figures now the issue ? 

Sailjuice results imo are a better starting point - most classes are represented by decent top quartile crews in well sorted boats - especially if you give additonal weight to the top half of the results.  For new classes this must point to a better method of establishing a first practical EN if that is what you want to call it - better that is than crude club results that really needto be in sample sizes of  many thousands of individual results to get any real smoothing into play. 

I'm therfore proposing using Sailjuice results to provide an initial EN ... and not even initial EN numbers being factored by Sailjuice results to produce a GL number as now.  Both approaches can then compliment each other rather than appearing to be rival approaches.  No new class should object to being excluded from the chocolates in the first year if that is what it takes anyway while this process runs its course.   Lets have a more certain process please - and stop pretending that a number derived from say <30 races for one class at only a couple of clubs is in some way as 'good' as one involving many thousands of results from another class spread all over the country... 

Nobody should ever buy a new boat becauseof the possibility of a 'bandit' handicap ... equally nobody should be put off buying into a new class because the 'given' handicap (or the one you may surely end up with initially !) frightens off the 'middle' range of club sailors from looking any further.  Most do not necessarily expect to win, but they would like a sporting chance of finishing some way up from the back !

Not-expecting-change-any-time-soon in the real world however.

Mike L.  

Why do you think that some set formula will do the trick? I wonder what figures the little Byte would come up with? Short, narrow and not much sail area, Lightning, short, wider, more sail. Let no one tell me that a Lightning is faster in anything above a light wind than a Byte. We have arguably...no not arguably....the two best Byte sailors in the country at our club and they regularly beat Supernova's on the water in a blow. No mathematical formula can compensate for this but the present PY system reflects it. Byte C2 1140, Lightning 368 1160......seems about right to me.

Originally posted by Bellingforth ... new classes are more likely to attract 'better' sailors.  This results in the EN being set low.

Edited by 2547 - 29 Jul 14 at 11:12am