PY Numbers for 2017

Another thought, we know that Solos are mostly sailed by older sailors and 29ers by youngsters, should we reduce the 29er PN by 10% and increase the Solos by similar to compensate for the greater/lesser physical attributes of their respective crews?

There may well be, but if there is it ain't statistics (other that the kind touted by politicians and marketing companies). I do, however, agree that with a sample size of, say, less than a thousand (i.e. 2/3rds of the boats on the list) that probably isn't meaningful statistics either. The PYC may well limit the changes (as the suggest clubs do with their local variations) to a certain percentage to damp the wild swings caused by a small sample size but who knows? Whatever, it's an imperfect system but until Grumf get's his formula accepted it's probably as fair as any other.

So the standard of Laser sailing in handicap races is dropping year on year? Cheap boats and replica sails have been common for many years now, so Lasers have long appealed to less experienced sailors. indeed the cheap boats now have xd kits.
Is it that most other classes are getting faster *at a faster rate* than Lasers? I am listening, honest, I'm just slow.

When I first became engaged in this lark about ten or so years ago, our local series was dominated by a Guy in a Laser. OK his competition wasn't too hot, the start lines were shall we say less than busy, but it was a good average fleet and although we joined in as fairly competent ex windsurfer racers we were useless boat handlers so wouldn't have expected to place. My memory of our first serious year was in an RS500 sailing off 963 and I don't think we ever beat the Laser which salled off 1078 and it was an old beaten up thing.
Since then Lasers have had the XD super kicker thing, new Lasers have shown up ex circuit fully tricked out, there have been new sails, new 'trainer sails' which we know for certain are over sized and now and again better guys often show up and can really turn up the heat.
Now I love it if someone really good shows up nothing better to learn and improve from, but better guys and nearly 20 pips, that makes them Bandits, so all respect is lost.
How do Laser sailors then feel, they get their victories derided, it is a rare thing, a genuine pot hunting bandit, at least on the sea, we've just got the one Merlin and that's getting more honest each year.
It is really not character building all this, precisely the opposite, eventually you get encouraged to swap about using the system which further builds the derision of the whole process of handicap racing, instead of trying to improve folk become cynical and it becomes 'only' handicap racing which defeats the object entirely.

Edited by iGRF - 07 Mar 17 at 10:17am

Originally posted by iGRF So what would be so wrong about trialling a system based on fact with a fixed boat performance quotient and just manage the crew element by data submission, so you'd have say in the Laser a fixed figure of 1000, but the current national average crew quotient is 95 and just vary that bit, at least it would lend some logic for understanding when you try to explain to folk that it's not the Laser that's getting slower it's just more duffers are sailing it and or an organisation wants to make it more appealing for Laser helms to participate in one group of events so they manipulate the figures to their own particular advantage and don't worry about screwing the rest of us. ;-)

Edited by Chris 249 - 07 Mar 17 at 11:30am