Development = faster?

>>summer evening series are often dogged with the wind dying - the fast boats have finished leaving the slower handicaps bobbing about in hardly any breeze

 

As one of the faster classes at our club (RS400 at Burghfield), I wish that would happen!!

Instead we have a pursuit race: So the slower boats start in a lovely breeze, and we plane up and down near the start line. By the time we start, the wind is dropping and we can't get near them.  But it is much better that way around, than having the younger people sailing the slower boats and getting stranded out on the lake trying to cross the finish line. At least in a pursuit finish the finish line can be motored back through the fleet rather than having to wait.

 

We use average lap racing at BBSC.  It works well, at 75 minutes any boat crossing the line is finished (be it fast or slow).  We pump the finish times and number of laps into the computer and bingo we have a list of positions.  All boats therefore will finish on their current lap.  Which means they all sail in much the same wind.

The previous discussion seemed to be mostly around the accuracy of the PY system; one point I didn't see raised was that the PY system does not take into account wind strength or course, instead it relies on a series being long enougth to average the results so a boat is not favoured by these conditions. This does not always happen, particularly on short events.

Its my belief that a computer based program could be developed which could be used to predict a handicap of a boat based on key factors such as sail size, hull weight etc. This should eliminate the inaccuracies with the current returns based system (discussed previously) and could even take into account variable factors such as wind strength, course and helm/crew weight.

Unfortunately, I don't see any evidence that the RYA has sufficient interest in handicap racing to investigate this; if I'm correct in this observation its a great shame as unfair handicaps can kill interest in racing. It must be a common experience to have sailed well only to find out your corrected position is not as good as expected and visa versa (although this doesn't seem to happen as often).

 

I followed your schrs link.  Nice idea but it doesn't take into account the wind strength, probably not worth the agro. 

I race a Laser 4000 against RS400s.  They are about the same weight, length and sail area.  We have a bigger gennaker and a trapeze and a PY about 4.5% lower.  In strong steady winds we beat them, in light or flukey winds they beat us.  Generally they win more often than we do - but we have more fun.  I wouldn't want to win more often - they might pack up and go home!

They have a very tiny bit larger main but the real difference is the hull shape.  They have much more rocker giving them better displacement sailing performance.  Whereas the 4000 has much straighter hull, designed for planing at the detriment of low speed performance.

I notice the texel rule gives only a 3% correction for centreboards - that's amazing - you'd think they'd make a bigger difference.

Edited by redback