Personal performance

There is always a lot of chat on here about PY and I frequently answer that I am happy to know I am getting better against my contemporaries and though few sail my class how a do against a class with a close PY.

Recently I started thinking was there a more measured way. I started with scoring each race with this formula:

100 - ( my position / race entries ) x 100

This gives a percentage position for the race. The higher the number the better you did. But it is obviously there are variables such as how the conditions and course suit you etc. You could additionally score each race against these variables to. 

To flatten the variables a rolling average of the percentage position can be graphed to show if you’re improving. I have limited data at the moment so only rolling averaging three results at the moment but will increase as I get to sail more. 

Thoughts?

Edited by tink - 22 Apr 21 at 7:03pm

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tink Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 23 Jan 16 Location: North Hants Online Status: Offline Posts: 789	Post Options Post Reply Quote tink Report Post Quote Reply Topic: Personal performance Posted: 22 Apr 21 at 6:52pm
	There is always a lot of chat on here about PY and I frequently answer that I am happy to know I am getting better against my contemporaries and though few sail my class how a do against a class with a close PY. Recently I started thinking was there a more measured way. I started with scoring each race with this formula: 100 - ( my position / race entries ) x 100 This gives a percentage position for the race. The higher the number the better you did. But it is obviously there are variables such as how the conditions and course suit you etc. You could additionally score each race against these variables to. To flatten the variables a rolling average of the percentage position can be graphed to show if you’re improving. I have limited data at the moment so only rolling averaging three results at the moment but will increase as I get to sail more. Thoughts? Edited by tink - 22 Apr 21 at 7:03pm
	Tink https://tinkboats.com http://proasail.blogspot.com

Rupert Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956	Post Options Post Reply Quote Rupert Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 22 Apr 21 at 7:11pm
	Sailing is unique in its lack of PBs and the like, so any way of building a measure of your own ability over time would be a very useful thing for a Society fixated by personal development.
	Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686

423zero Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 08 Jan 15 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 3420	Post Options Post Reply Quote 423zero Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 22 Apr 21 at 9:46pm
	Hard to quantify a personal best in such a flukey sport.
	Robert

epicfail Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Groupie Joined: 01 Dec 19 Online Status: Offline Posts: 61	Post Options Post Reply Quote epicfail Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 23 Apr 21 at 6:20am
	I have picked one chap as my benchmark, he consistent and regularly wins. I record my elapsed time against his each week; the aim is to get the gap down. My problem is inconsistency, some weeks I'm ok others not. This also happens sometimes in individual races, ok until half way then cock it up!

Paramedic Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 27 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 929	Post Options Post Reply Quote Paramedic Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 23 Apr 21 at 7:11am
	This seems as good a mathematical model as any for a personal handicap system and is probably already in use. There are all kinds of ways of doing this, some scientific some not and on my small lake we did very well for many years at class level with a meeting every series and a peer review system based firmly on a finger in the air and 30 second time blocks to be taken off boats deemed slower than a "scratch" sailor. The peer review filters out the anomalous races you get in every series where someone performs far, far better than they "should". This can make a big difference on a mathematical system or one where a win results in an automatic time drop. This worked very well for several years until a group of us got keener, bought better boats, started travelling and improved. A lot. The only way of quantifying this is to make everyone else slower and they didnt like it. it reached the point where the number they wanted needed a minute adding to it! Im not involved now, but I think the system in current use puts a "scratch" boat at 300 seconds to be deducted - so if they improve you can still speed them up but its unlikely that they get 5 minutes faster! Edited by Paramedic - 23 Apr 21 at 7:15am

Mozzy Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Far too distracted from work Joined: 21 Apr 20 Online Status: Offline Posts: 209	Post Options Post Reply Quote Mozzy Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 23 Apr 21 at 7:39am
	When I was younger I had a large spreadsheet, with all my results from about 10 years of racing. From my first topper open to coming 3rd at the 2011 200 nationals. But the base of it was just the % position within the fleet. But I also had weighting on the level of competition (1 being a local topper open, 10 being an international 49er championship) with a bit of wriggle room for if the lower level competitions attracted unusually strong fields. I also a small weighting on my personal feeling on how well I did. It worked pretty well and to this day I still couldn't tell you whether I am more proud of the results, or the conditional formatting, compounded IF functions and macros for data input and data validation. But after 2011 we rarely did any open events and I start cycling etc so I stopped with the record. It's still somewhere on an old hard external hard drive that seemingly won't spin. The problem was, it really didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Although maybe it helped put some of my worse results in perspective. Since I stopped I kind of just viewed myself as a club sailor. Racing for fun but with no massive interest in results. I also think I have a better handle on my own performance. I don't get too disappointed if I get a thrashing and I better understand the nuances of where races went well and good and how creditable those instances were to my own skill, or just chance. I am still looking for a way to better describe personal bests and have been looking at the more expensive data collection tools. To keep a record of my best tacks sorted by a distance lost metric, with video linked. Also some upwind and downwind VMGs with heel, pitch, sheet, and control lines tensions all linked to describe it.

H2 Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 26 Jul 17 Online Status: Offline Posts: 750	Post Options Post Reply Quote H2 Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 23 Apr 21 at 8:24am
	At a previous club there was a chap who loved playing with spreadsheets which he used for the personal handicap series as well as inputting to the sailing committee to evidence justification for PY variations. As I recall he essentially worked out a distribution of expected results for each class (bell curve) where 100 was the peak of the bell. He told me where to go look in the results sheet to see my own result for each race and for several years I would extract my personal result for each race. Less than 100 and it had been a sh*tty race and upto 120 was a great race. It was really interesting to look at over several seasons. You could see series which had been affected by very light winds were weaker than when it was blowing for the Frostbite and you could see how I was improving over time with all the practice. My target was to be at or around 120 points for each race and was really motivational. I used to think of it as a golfer does where 100 = par.
	H2 #115 (sold) H2 145 OK 2082

ian.r.mcdonald Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Far too distracted from work Joined: 24 Feb 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 440	Post Options Post Reply Quote ian.r.mcdonald Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 24 Apr 21 at 10:54am
	Having "escaped " from work, I am enjoying being away from spreadsheets and calculators. My final visual position against 4 or 5 key boats I have chosen ,gives me an immediate race rating. And the IMCD rating can be immediately adjusted to cheer me up! Edited by ian.r.mcdonald - 24 Apr 21 at 11:22am

Doug H Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Newbie Joined: 10 Jul 19 Online Status: Offline Posts: 4	Post Options Post Reply Quote Doug H Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 24 Apr 21 at 2:47pm
	Tink, didn't you realise the concept of getting better and possibly winning races by skill developed over time is outright banned from this forum?! Everything is the py's fault!! This isn't even a sailing forum. It's a py forum Like mozzy, I also hard a race result diary growing up as a kid once I started doing opens. Very basic, approx wind strength and just converting results into percentage within the fleet. Over time that percentage number got lower and lower except in lighter conditions. Even though I knew and still know i'm crap in light winds in singlehanders (though oddly not in doublehanders), the numbers nicely present the glaring weakness. I wonder if adding up over time an average of time behind the winner for each band of wind strength could be worth while? Although I also wonder how relevent measuring it is because realistically I suspect we know full well when we've raced well and when we haven't. We know when our boat handling has been slick and those odd races where everything just goes to crap and footwork and timing seem to be a distant memory. We know when we were in sync with the shifts and the days when we were getting spun around in circles. Very keen to see what ideas people have. We could end up with something as a useful teaching tool.......