Dart HAWK Racing

As I see it, the problem is that completion of a RYA YR2 return is a non-trivial exercise; clubs must process their results to the YR2 spec and derive recommended PNs that are then returned to the RYA.   As well as the burden this places on clubs, it also reduces the richness of the data available to the RYA for mining. 

In the 'States they run a PY system with clubs simply sending back class elapsed times(*) that USSA can then mine as they like to derive new numbers.  It works.  There are PNs for all cats because the exercise is trivial from a club's perspective and no more onerous from USSA's perspective.

http://www.ussailing.org/portsmouth/pyindex.htm
http://www.ussailing.org/portsmouth/tables06/tables06mh.htm

USSA accepts the results as HTML, so essentially every time you upload final event results to a website, you just forward them to a very nice lady called Darlene at USSA too; that's it...

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(*)USSA also request a per-race average wind strength with the elapsed times so that they can derive wind indexed values to qualify the wind-independent values for clubs that wish to include a wind component in their events.

That's true, you can look at the formula and see how it works. Therefore you can also tweak a class ( Hurricane SX) or design a class ( Spitfire) to make sure you get the best out of the rule. Something like a Dart 18 that will not fundamentally change it's class rules will therefore become out of date as other boats are " built " to the rule. A formula is also not real world, for example, SCHRS assumes each crew member is 75 Kg. In reality a Hobie Dragoon sailor will be a lot lighter and your average club Tornado sailor will be heavier.

In the ideal world PY has got to be better because it takes actual results by actual sailors in real world conditions and adjusts accordingly. Unfortunately there are not enough classes and clubs providing results for the established dinghy classes, so there is no way it would work with cats.

A while ago Worthy was also correct - however we did not agree

But I take your points on the fairness (or lack of!) of handicap systems. Must say reading on this forum the SCHRS and its development appears more open than the way the RYA kept the PY system firmly behind closed doors.

Every thing you say is correct Port end flyer. The correlation between SCHRS and PY is pretty flawed, but unless people publish returns there will never be an accurate PY number.

All handicap systems have flaws, some are worse than others. Scooby Simon and his team are working on ironing out some of SCHRS's. The only way to be 100% fair is to race a strict one design with all boats of an equal age etc etc. The tolerances in manufacturing make even one design racing a bit of a farce, remember back to the days of Dart 18 sailors going to the laser centre with scales and weighing all the mast so they could get a light one.

OK if the Hurricane and Hawk were raced some years back before the advent of SCHRS and returns were sent in then the PY of 691 is surely justified, if fact the best Cat sailors were sailing Hurricanes then so its PY may well be at bit harsh today?

To say that the F18 inherited a PY of 691 due to the fact of returns for the Hawk and now all F18’s race of this (if racing off PY) although no, or not enough, PY returns have been sent in for these newer and faster developments, is surely stretching the rules of fair sailing!

Worthy said that a Hawk is no longer competitive against today’s F18’s, and if today’s F18 PY returns were going in based on the very good sailors in the F18 fleet now then almost with out doubt that rating would have dropped as PY is a results based handicap! Surely it is very much as if the Hurricane SX boats claimed a PY of 691 as they also rate the same as a Hurricane with out a kite by SCHRS measurement rules, but current results appear to show the SX as faster.

As PY is results based then the only fair way to sail off this system is to put in the correct and up-to-date returns or not race off this system at all?