Quick PY Question

Originally posted by iGRF Well what were the chances of that? ...permitting the 'anarchy' that happens at present with organisations like the sail juice mob, (these were the vested interest I was thinking of at the time) tilting the slope in the direction of the Laser presumably in the expectation of greater numbers for their event, which in turn prejudices the rest of the country, because..

I think the one thing that was becoming obvious at many clubs is that the Laser seemed disadvantaged on its 'formal' handicap in recent years.  It was unlikely that every other class was getting faster but the boat seemed to have lost relative speed somehow.  A significant change looked warranted to encourage Laser owners - the 'old' system with the boat enjoying its 'primary' status made this difficult.  You have to remember that many get into racing via the shed loads of cheap 'entry' level Lasers and similar at just about every club around.

There are other factors and I'm speculating now but I don't think the Laser excels in any particular wind conditions:
 
Very windy = 420, Fireball and one of two of the asymentrics
Light = Phantom, Merlin etc

You get the idea of course, and you can all add to the listings ....  We will all have our favorites (and just maybe bias !) to add to these sorts of relative performance rankings usually of 'other' classes at most SC bars !  However I don't think the Laser would be placed by many as a likely 'bandit' in any wind category - it is arguably 'too middle of the road' to win very often on handicap these days when one representative or another from the better 'matching to wind' category can 'over-perform'  their  number on that day ... The handicap number is only ever going to be an average after all and will never favour boats that have a very 'even' performance across the wind range.

At club level a personal handicap taking into account both the helm and the class is much more likely to boost involvement from 'new to racing' types (and we could do with a LOT more surely) It is not what you purists may want to hear but most of us do have enough good class racing already to satisfy any of our 'purist' tendencies via our own classes.  Over emphasising handicap racing whether at club level or in a winter 'major' such as the BM may be a bit of a mistake for the sport.

Sure encourage handicap racing but make it attractive to the 'newbies' as well -  scorn Golf if you like but personal handicaps work to the benefit of both golfers and the industry behind it.  We need many many more grass roots participants - who is really addressing this today ?  Deciding the PN of the various deckchairs as they slide down the deck of the arguably heeling ship does not do the sport overall much good.  Handicap racing should provide good competitive sport for all but for the 'best' it should surely mainly be about providing good practice for single class sailing.  It could alternatively be engineered to encourage newcomers rather than becoming geared soley to the priorities of the already convinvced  !

To an outsider reading this thread  it could easily appear that the PN discussions have become an end in themselves.  They may just come to the conclusion that the sport is noisily disappearing up its own rear end bickering about class handicaps rather than growing grass roots (racing) participation  .... that is imho !

Mike L.

 thanks to chris and all involved with the work they do with pyag, in making the system as good as it can be.

the system is not perfect and never can be, for all boats and all sailors, in all conditions
its just an average figure.

the fact is, nobody in fifty odd years has come up with anything better.

at the end of the day its a waste of time fretting over 10 yardstick points in a race, when one bad tack will cost you more time!!!!!!!!!!!

"Quick PY question".......was there ever?

I am reading a book at the moment (Thinking, Fast and Slow), which contains much discussion relevant to The Great PY debate. Topics covered include how bad we are (even pro statisticians) at using our intuition at estimating statistics, our misplaced faith in small sample sizes, our inability to distinguish heresay from fact, our subconscious biases etc etc. highly recommend reading.