Pointless PY Pondering

Originally posted by epicfail Yes I know its all based on race returns but are there obvious boat design issues that might account for the differences. Is it primarily down to weight and length?   The Streaker has less sail area than the Europe and Lightning but is longer. Does this partly explain it's quicker PY. It's also quicker than a Solo despite the Solo having more sail - but I guess the Solo is a bit of a lardy. Perhaps all Streaker racers really good? The Lightning is longer than the Europe has the same sail area but the hull is 9kg heavier, Is that enough to explain the slower PY than the Europe?  Or perhaps I'm a fool to ask?

I believe the lowest 10% of results are discarded before the returns are processed so as to represent the boars performance in the hands of an average to good sailor. Historically the very best sailors were more likely to race in class events so didn't turn up in handicap results so much.

Its really not worth spending too much time worrying about handicap racing.

Generally every dog has its day - depending on the conditions and course.

Some classes will be awful in some conditions and brilliant in other and some classes will be ok in most but never excel (Laser ?)

It can never be totally fair to everyone and should be viewed this way

Certain classes also have an advantage - PYs are based on average results (the average boats club racing). Hence the results of older club wayfarers skew the results of the up to date Hartley boats. i.e the variation from one to the other is huge.

With most racing classes the performance variations are far less

All in all its best to accept handicap racing for what it is - some days you wont win however well you sail.

Even for larger keelboats (most of whom race in handicap fleets) its just the same - every dog....

Edited by Cirrus - 19 Nov 20 at 3:47pm

Well here is the RYA website showing which clubs return data: http://www.pyonline.org.uk/map-clubs.php its a bit of a pain as you have to click on the club and then see if they have returned data. Of course the last 12 months is weird due to C19 but I recall doing this a year back and it was clear many of the larger, more active clubs with some of the best helms did not return data and I have asked around as to why this was and always got the same answer.