Handicap racing now pointless?

I can't understand all the angst over the foiling moths.  They are so 'on-off' in performance, depending on wind strength and crew skill thaty you can't hope to represent their performance with an average PY.  Averages are sometimes just not applicable. 

Graeme,

RE:>> And if you take the names there into consideration ... it becomes blatently obvious the winner won on merit, not banditary

Originally posted by Peter Barton Originally posted by richcritch Is it now completely pointless handicap racing? Is it not a lottery....Some boats..labeled bandits takes away any glory..Others have frustrating times ...rarely winning. ..PY has been completely warped ...handicaps not moving in line... not many fleets...sailing has killed itself? Frustration will lead people to quit and effectively ruin the sport?   Wow, the end of the world!  I think 302 happy boats on Saturday would suggest otherwise. Beside the racing it was a fantastic parade of sail and I am sure the envy of worldwide dinghy sailing. I would love an aerial photograph of the lake taken at 1.20pm!   Seriously, I think you need.........a Moth! Not for handicap racing, just for blasting for the pure enjoyment of the sport and to regain your love. And it will take years off you!   I applaud the hard work and pro-activity of the Great Lakes group, QM and Sailjuice. The current system has been moaned about for years in that the numbers did not react quickly enough or move by enough when they did react. They wont please all the people all the time (they wont give Moths the same handicap as Toppers when it is less than 8kn....and we're not asking!) but I think they have had a very good stab under their stated objectives and the results show it.   It was a good wind (breezy, but not too breezy) and course (more reaching than normal due to wind dirn) for the Moths. Every dog has its day...isn't that uncertainty part of what makes it so very interesting?

I agree with you Pete, I just want to know why the Farr got stung so hard. ( I need to have a chat with QMSC ) Even decreasing from Grafham's offered number. It's a One Design as I have said before, with plenty of data ( in higher average wind strength ), just not in the Uk. Which should make the number go up not down! My extraplation is that if you don't offer the correct number for just one class the race's validity is devalued. If the BM is just one great big 'bug Jam' where a load of fun loving sailors rock up for a good blast, that's fine and the numbers don't matter. Anything else means you need to do your up most to offer a fair system. And most definatly you can't just start randomly changing numbers mid series for no reason. Lets hope there isn't a Far East betting syndicate 'spot betting' on sailing events like this.

Edited by Jack Sparrow - 10 Jan 12 at 11:58am

Just checking Jack - did you get all/some of the data from Aus and reanalyse it to get it on the same datum as the PY and send it to SJ or QMSC?.  If not who were you expecting to do that?.

I find it hard to believe that the BM committee would randomly change numbers - more likely the discussion went something like.  "Farr3.7 - first entry, no data available or presented to us; lets do what we always do with new boats; give them a conservative handicap and then see how it goes and make adjustments for next year".  Talk to the SJ guys, get them the data from Aus in a form they can use and keep sailing the number will come good  .