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iGRF View Drop Down
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    Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 8:53am
Originally posted by marke



Graeme - congratulations that is the highest ratio of bollox/words I have seen in a single post for a long time.  So few words - so many misconceptions.



Well the fact I still 'don't get it' is an indicator as to just how badly y'all are doing. I don't get it and I'm trying to, the majority of the would be newbies won't even bother, they'll just role their eyes and vote with their feet, the days of snobbish 'if you don't understand we don't want you in our club anyway' attitude sadly died back in the sixties and seventies so your job is to make it so us intelligently challenged do 'get it'.

Gerrymandering a system the way you are at the moment with no hard basis in scientific facts or the apprearance that, that is going on is just a waste of all your hard work and effort, no disrespect to you, you're doing as good a job with the tools you have been given and once again I'm happy to echo the praise here for so doing.

But how you can claim that lowering the handicap of an already generous Olympic class is anything other than an attempt to swell the numbers of an ego commercial event is beyond my comprehension.

There has been no construction change to a Laser, neither it's sail area, width, depth length or volume have changed, neither has the 300 so why is one moving not the other if not for the benefit of some interest group?

Is my point.

The system should be based on measurement, length, sail area, beam, volume, weight, mast height etc hard facts can't be argued with, what's happening now will always be contentious.

Anyway, jolly along, my thirty odd years of sailing took place without the benefit of any handicap system whatsoever so I'm happy to be enjoying it as it is, but as I said, it could so easily be so much fairer, less complicated and less open to the charges made earlier.
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:02am
Having spent the last decade being part of a small team working out modified 1965 PY's for the Classic and Vintage circuit, I have nothing but admiration for the people who do the real one.

Admittedly, our problems are a little different (we deliberately set out to give old boats with old kit a chance of winning, so wooden masts and cotton sails are given a huge boost), but just like the main group, the biggest factors are crew skill and weather, and a combo of both.

Carry on the good work!
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Posts: 198 		Post Options Post Options   Quote gbr940 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:05am
My biggest gripe with PY isn't the system but how the system is administered at the Sailing Club level from the moment a course is set and people "sign-on" to the finish gun of the boat crossing the line. PY works absolutely fine as long as every boat on that racing course has an equally fair chance of winning the race if the boat is sailing to it's ability.
 
Our club (and i'm sure the majority around the country inland and coastal) is run 98% of the time by volunteers and therefore not many are aware of what is a "fair" course. Perhaps the RYA should be producing "Idiots Guide" Race Management documentation to ensure the PY system works fairly.
 
So my question is - for PY to work effectively, is there a standard elapsed race time that the handicap number is based upon i.e. 60mins?  And is there a time comparison chart for say a B14 vs Phantom/Vareo (to win how many mins/hour req)


Edited by gbr940 - 11 Jan 13 at 9:52am
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Posts: 76 		Post Options Post Options   Quote boatbasher Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:09am
Originally posted by iGRF

Originally posted by marke



Graeme - congratulations that is the highest ratio of bollox/words I have seen in a single post for a long time.  So few words - so many misconceptions.



Well the fact I still 'don't get it' is an indicator as to just how badly y'all are doing.


No matter how good a teacher there will always be a kid at the back of the class that isn't smart enough to understand the lesson
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Posts: 2202 		Post Options Post Options   Quote pondmonkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:17am
Originally posted by marke

Jimbo

Here are the things that seemed to work at our club

- make it a dispassionate analysis based on evidence - I'm afraid you can't avoid data analysis - but the PYS makes this a LOT easier for clubs now (and the club comparison approach that Chris mentioned will add more value in the future if that can be made to work).  In our case I wrote some software to do what the PYS does now and put it on the web so anyone could see comparative PYs for individual races, series, seasons at any time.

- focus on the classes that are performing poorly rather than the so-called bandits (in our case it was the laser - we had some good sailors on the open meeting circuit who were never appearing in the chocolates even in favourable conditions for the laser)

- don't cherry pick data - present it all for all classes

- compare your clubs data with other clubs - the Great Lakes data set was a great breakthrough here (thanks Andrew) - and is a great informal forum for getting experiences of performance of particular classes which may be new to your club.  Again PYS should make this easier in the future - and you can decide which clubs might be comparable.  As it turns out apart from the Merlin Rocket our local results were very similar to those calculated by the Great Lakes group.

- have some rules about how you will change PYS based on the confidence you have in your data (Hector has described what they do at their club in this regard) and stick to them.

- agree to review regularly - start 6 monthly and then to annually when its settled down a bit.  Do the review even if everything seems OK - no change is an acceptable outcome.

Hope that helps

Mark

Graeme - congratulations that is the highest ratio of bollox/words I have seen in a single post for a long time.  So few words - so many misconceptions.

BTW - back in the 70s there used to be a number of one-of-a-kind, two-of-a-kind events for comparing the boats with good sailors in each class - the Nathan Silver Salver at Draycote was one of the best.  Top two sailors in each class were invited to sail against other classes in a race each year.  Great event to do.  Useful info for a PY system - but no more useful than the SailJuice series in it was a few data points each year on one type of water under one type of wind conditions and one type of course, and certainly no replacement for the 100,000+ data points in the PYS (and growing)

Thanks Mark- it might be worth writing your experiences up as proper case study and supporting it with further empirical evidence- growth in regular participation, or as Mike points out, growth in newcomers to the sport.  

Every club seems to need newbies and whilst I'm probably now in a more conventional mindset that would steer them towards class racing, even if the boat ain't perfect for them (insert laser bashing and corner catching here) maybe personal handicapping in a beginner PY fleet might be the way forward for some clubs?  They could even adjust for both CSF and Boat condition, thereby supporting older, cheaper boats for those not prepared to invest £4-15k into something after dropping off a L2 course.

I would certainly agree with the following sentiments:

- PY racing has improved MASSIVELY in the past few seasons with the bolder outlook from the PYAG and the engaging nature of the RYA to get more understanding out there. (I personally couldn't have got better support from the RYA when we had some PY issues with a class I was involved in)

- PY racing still represents a great way to get folks together who would otherwise not race, even if like me, the thought of doing it week in, week out isn't appealing (festival sailing, regattas etc)

- Any general failings of the PY system can be traced by to either bi-polar performance variables in the boat (Int Moth / Asymmetric on a W/L) or localised implementation- not adjusting numbers or only setting courses that favour certain boats.   Therefore please accept that any gripes, moans and fountains of b**locks spouted on here and sailing club bars the country over, isn't really aimed at the RYA or the PYAG (from those who even vaguely understand the process), it's more a quintessentially British trait of self depreciation at club level.


Edited by pondmonkey - 11 Jan 13 at 9:25am
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:19am
I've had a little fresh think about this, having started this thread genuinely at the time to ask the question about the 300 with a view to using it for the little spreadsheet I'm building for personal use, (basically to work out how many minutes per hour I would have to beat or be behind a sample of other single handers).

Now this has developed into a full blown PY discussion the next obvious question would be what would happen now if it were up to me to start from scratch, but with the benefit of knowing what we do now know.

To my simplistic mind it would be obvious and satisfy what really is the two fold purpose of the current system, first wether you like it or not it is used as a marketing tool by the boat industry and second it is what it is supposed to be a fair method by which we can all race together in our different craft with a quantifiable result at the end of it.

So Logic would dictate, that two things are needed really. 1) A Performance Quotient for the boat and 2) the same for the Individual. The combination of which would provide the basis for a handicap should it be needed.

The PQ for the boat could easily be worked out by folks like young Dan with his computer box of tricks, they did it when they were setting about building my boat, surely it can be refined to drop in a set of figures and spit out a single number based on all those hard facts, then the boat bit simply cannot be argued it is what it is and will only change if something significant changes like weight or mast height or sail size even stiffness can be measured.

Then the personal handicap can also be set on your height, weight and yrs of experience to start with again can't be argued with and with those two combinations you get your number.

There easy isn't it, solved your problem for you, so of you go now and lets not have any more silly discussions or moans about how complicated and time consuming it is, computerise it.

But it won't happen because you wouldn't all be silly billy *dinghy sailors without it now would you?


*In case you were wondering, no, I'm not a dinghy sailor, even the Mrs won't use the term as it conjours up all those images of the weird, bearded, beermat bottomed, socks in sandal, Solo sailors, I am a PSR.. (Performance Sailboat Racer/Rider)

Edited by iGRF - 11 Jan 13 at 9:30am
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Posts: 1635 		Post Options Post Options   Quote blaze720 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:40am
But it won't happen because you wouldn't all be silly billy dinghy sailors without it now would you?

Greame - In the days before time when the world thought it worth educating some of us at University (for free even !) one of the most enlightening bits of graffiti soon discovered on a urinal wall next to my college bar was "We ARE the people our parents warned us about"

So sorry mate - You is a dinghy sailor now !   Get over it .... So no point trying to distance yourself, there are plenty of us ex-windsurfers on here ....  and so that the 'dinghy only' types do know that world was even more completely screwed up, competition wise and commercially.

Mike L.


     


Edited by blaze720 - 11 Jan 13 at 9:41am
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pondmonkey View Drop Down
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Posts: 2202 		Post Options Post Options   Quote pondmonkey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 9:53am
Originally posted by iGRF

*In case you were wondering, no, I'm not a dinghy sailor, even the Mrs won't use the term as it conjours up all those images of the weird, bearded, beermat bottomed, socks in sandal, Solo sailors, I am a PSR.. (Performance Sailboat Racer/Rider)

so where's the performance sailboat then?  An EPS... you've got to be sh*tting me!


Edited by pondmonkey - 11 Jan 13 at 9:53am
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chrisg View Drop Down
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Originally posted by iGRF



But it won't happen because you wouldn't all be silly billy *dinghy sailors without it now would you? 

Sorry Graham, I own a few boards too.... Shock horror - PY bloke windsurfs too (when he gets time/inclination).  Wink

I may not have achieved God like status in the windsurf community like yourself, but evidence exists that I can do it:



Edited by chrisg - 11 Jan 13 at 9:58am
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Jan 13 at 10:01am
Any thing with a PY under 1050 is a Performance Sailboat.   

I am a semi retired sailboard racer learning to become a sailboat racer and not trying very hard to prolong the process.
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