Racing quality

What was it Churchill said about democracy?

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.

Originally posted by NickM Graeme, as Commodore at Hythe, why don't you persuade your Sailing Committee to come up with locally suitable variations of the PY scheme as other clubs do?

I will endeavour to get them to form a "sailing committee" to review this latest debacle, but since it's taken us windsurfers this long to teach them how to race properly, I can't see them having the political will to over rule centuries of RYA domination, they are just not aware. I had a conversation on Sunday with the Commodore from the club that is a bit more switched on at the Redoubt where they do adjust handicaps, they've moved me to 1036 and I'd not even realised, they use some sort of programme that works it out for you, but clearly it doesn't work any better, wether I'm first or last I still end up seventh if I even bother to find out and if it did work I would feel even more inadequate so I'm not really the person to argue the case for personal handicaps. Winning because they changed my handicap advantageously would be worse than the worse last place or humiliating rescue by woman that has ever befallen my sad ass down that lake.

Equipment performance differences are understandable, but a golfing style approach is not what sailing is about imv. I want an accurate fact based boat performance index. Something that proves that the Blaze is actually faster than the EPS because it has more volume and more sail area and that the Phantom sits just in between most of the time because although it gets going in light it doesn't quite have the righting moment of the Blaze once the wind picks up. Not a system that is governed by who happens to be sailing what & where, or how many of them and wether or not they report the fact every so often.

Waterline length, volume, sail area and aspect ratio, righting moment, rocker and wetted surface define how fast a boat is, not how many hotshots or muppets make returns, there's a place for that sort of thing, but it's not reality and unless you have actual reality you get the mess you have now, with a swirling chaos of numerics with no null point anchoring them.

Edited by iGRF - 03 Mar 14 at 8:25am

Graeme, as Commodore at Hythe, why don't you persuade your Sailing Committee to come up with locally suitable variations of the PY scheme as other clubs do?

Well you're wrong, and like a lot of dinghy folk, no judge of human nature.

There needs to be an alternative, and controlled by the supply side of the Industry, you can't expect them to take the risks they have to, to gear up for boat production only to have a bunch of muppet consumers destroy their market through incompetence. What's happened to the Icon is ridiculous and a travesty and there are many other stupid illogical things happening due to the randomness and bias of the reporting system.

It is out dated, out moded and should be superseded by something better that cannot be allowed to change unless there is some physical alteration in the build specification of the craft.

Graeme,

Craiggo is right.

Measurement based systems that produce a "one number" handicap are generally type-forming, and can be "gamed" (or as Craiggo puts it "key factors for optimisation can be identified") so that designers end up designing what the rule makers want, not necessarily what us sailors may want, and this is why from time to time they implode when the formula is wrong or out of date, while those systems that produce a 'multi-number' handicap based on different variables (type of course, wind strength that day etc) end up being so complex that people don't understand it/get bored waiting for the results to be computed.

The current PY system strikes a balance - being a simple one number system that is not type-forming and cannot be gamed, but which allows for, and in fact expects, a certain amount of variability for different types of water.

To spell it out verbatim from the PY website:

"However, the national list is based on a summation of recommendations from clubs nationwide. The list of national numbers may not be appropriate for every club individually. This is due to a number of factors including the type of boats sailed at each club, the predominant wind trends, tidal factors, size of water etc.
Because the national list will not suit every club, each individual club should develop its own list of handicap numbers from their race results".

Here's a suggestion.... if you think sea-based clubs are getting a short straw (and you may be correct that a majority of returns come from inland clubs) then do exactly what the Sail-Juice guys have done with their handicaps. Have a chat with your sea-based club, persuade them to link up with similar others on the sea to share data, and then agree together and use any adjustments to PYs you think appropriate. (Maybe even call the PY adjustment GRFY.... )

PS Craiggo.... with that tidal range I think you must sail at the very same club as my mate Jeremy, who I sailed across the channel with in his Laser 2k? How's his, er, long distance Wayfarer coming on?!!