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PY Inland vs Sea
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Bootscooter View Drop Down
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    Posted: 23 Oct 14 at 5:26pm
Vulture? Nah.....

It's always made me think of this;


*polishes Star Trek nerd badge*

Edited by Bootscooter - 23 Oct 14 at 5:28pm
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Oct 14 at 5:41pm
That reminds me more of that black Moth that was posted a while back - the one with the molded in wings.
Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Oct 14 at 3:16pm
Originally posted by kneewrecker

It's no simple task- take for example Parkstone and Hayling- both 'sea' venues and if you're lucky to have a championship there you'll probably find you're really sailing out at sea.  But if you think that is where they do a lot of their club racing you are wrong- it's often inside the harbour, with flukey winds and local tidal knowledge coming in to play.  Other than that tide, what is so different between that, and say and upriver club like RHYC, or even a large pond like Rutland?

How shifty a venue is is to do with whether it is open or not and the prevailing wind direction. However, tide venues always penalize slower boats comparatively more. 

I think there is a clear distinction between a tidal venue and non-tidal (you can still get relatively non-tidal locations on the sea). 

Edit: oops, I see this has been covered later in the thread.


Edited by mozzy - 24 Oct 14 at 3:28pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Oct 14 at 4:10pm
Originally posted by transient


Quote David:

"Apply a wind strength factor

Apply a wind direction factor

Apply a course factor

Apply a tide factor"

depends......If you're trying to get a fair result for 1 race then maybe.
If you're working on a series then some of those factors average out, the longer the series the better.

And it gets more complicated still more. Simpler boats which have tighter racing, but it's outliers that win handicap races, and therefore boats which are high risk or tweaky and have big fleet split are more likely to produce a winner at a handicap event.  

The answer to this is to handicap for the top of each fleet, but then you end up with a load of average laser sailors in the top third of a handicap race. 

Add on to this you also get the proximity problem. If you start near marginally faster boats (same class or different) then you get slowed down by their dirty. 

Add this issue on to those of varying performance in tide, wind (strength and shift / gust frequency) and course (and possibly water density), then you'll soon realize handicap racing is just a bit of fun, and not serious competition. 

Most switched on people can see this, even if they don't know the technical reasons why, they get the feeling that results can be a bit variable. Trying to make handicaps better is for the most part missing the point. They're a bit of fun where you can't get a fleet racing, or for novelty value of a big 'get together' (tiger, barts bash). 

This is why The Endeavour Trophy is so prestigious, despite being in a quirky venue, in boats no one sails and many aren't the optimum size for: class racing is still a fairer test than handicap can be. 


Edited by mozzy - 24 Oct 14 at 4:12pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 24 Oct 14 at 7:32pm
Dont overcomplicate it. Coastal or inland. let each club decide what they think they are..
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Posts: 246 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JohnJack Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Oct 14 at 9:51am
Is skill factor still taken into account in the submissions??
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Posts: 1635 		Post Options Post Options   Quote blaze720 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Oct 14 at 11:11am
The answer to this is to handicap for the top of each fleet, but then you end up with a load of average laser sailors in the top third of a handicap race.

In effect, if not reflected by its name, is what the Great Lakes (modification of the PN) system does.  The name is perhaps a bit misleading of course.  Weighting or adjusting for the front of any class has application on all waters - not just  on 'Great Lakes').   The major handicap events (many included within the Sailjuice Series) now use them of course - but they are also being used on the sea to good effect and I'd have thought they would be just as useful on many of the 'Small Lakes' around as well.

Club returns are of course attractive and are the basis of the PN system ... - 'more' results must be better surely goes the basic argument. And clubs do have LOTS of results don't they ?  The concern is that unless the sample in question is otherwise totally uniform wth respect to other (some very causal critical) factors the numbers that emerge  ...do not necessaily give the most reliable handicap.  That is if you want to primarily handicap the 'potential' of each class.  

May not really matter that much at many clubs for a wander round the cans on sunday.  But at the major winter events and for handicap racing in a number of summer sailing weeks .... would you not want to be reasonably sure about class potential across the board there ?   Of course we are all encouraged to 'factor' the raw PN numbers 'to reflect local conditons etc' round the clubs anyway  ..... 

The only difference with the GL approach is that they are applying assessed 'corrections' but doing so for whole groups of events - The results they are using to adjust the numbers are generally their own ...  So there is not that much difference really to the methodology proposed by the RYA Portsmouth for individual clubs anyway !

The 'sample' that they use is largely based on the SJ series results of course - and because the SJ events tend to disproportionally attract better examples of most classes many of the 'other' causal factors can be 'ironed' out.  

'More data'  .. or 'better data' anyone ?  It might just be the difference that people should be talking about !   Rubbishing anyones approach, for or against change, does not advance anything really.

Mike L. 
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Oct 14 at 8:26pm
The PY system is designed for "meandering round the cans on a Sunday". That is the purpose it is used for by what, 99% of users? I guess this is why the GL people change some of the figures, as they find it works better for what they want for a high profile race series.

The system needs the returns from those who use the system, and in turn, those returns produce the new numbers - there is no "better data".
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Posts: 1635 		Post Options Post Options   Quote blaze720 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Oct 14 at 9:28pm

Hi Rupert

Broadly agree ... But while all data can be useful half the battle with statistical analysis is deciding what part of the data available overall is actually useful .. and does not ultimately mislead or only tell part of the story.  Many assume 'more' is 'better' here but that is not always the case.  Sampling limitations and artefacts can mask what might really be going on.

The advice to 'vary' locally is an admission that the output numbers do not and cannot always 'work' - quite correctly and this is not a criticism by the way.   High profile events are not really so different simply just because they have more entrants and more visitors.   If you were to accept ‘dual’ handicaps long term, one for 'clubs' and one for 'high profile' it does throw up other issues as well.

For example why should there be a different handicaps for the same boat / crew  when it is sailed on a regular Sunday at a club that also hosts an annual 'high profile' event say once a year ?  What has really changed apart from the number of visitors around them ?

We live in interesting times ...maybe  Wink

Mike L.



Edited by blaze720 - 27 Oct 14 at 9:29pm
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 Oct 14 at 9:04am
Ah, when I said no "better data", I wasn't meaning that you shouldn't cut off outlier results. But they are still part of the data set as it first arrives. Just that if you have results from everyone who uses the system, then the handicaps that come out at the end will better reflect the users.

The only question seems to be at what point you decide that the results are not representative of that class of boat. Some on here seem to think that anything beyond the top 10% of results isn't measuring boat potential, and so it should be culled. For a small class, that would leave so few results as to be useless, and would still leave the problem of crew skill factor anyway, as who is to say which classes have the greater skill?

By simply cutting out the numbers that clearly are just not fitting the bell curve (so the total beginners, the capsized a lot but carried ons, the won the race because the wind dropped after avaerage laps kicked ins) you have the greatest number of results calculations being fed back to the people who created them.

I agree that high profile events should use the same handicaps, by the way - most of the people who go are not hotshots - but do the GL clubs use GL handicaps all year round anyway?
Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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