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    Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 4:41pm
Originally posted by mozzy

I fear they are just making the situation worse by pretending this is possible. 

Yes, altering the handicaps does increase participation in the short term as it piques peoples interest to come and have another go. 

But how will they ever pull out data from race situations? The wind switching off before your class can get round a mark, whilst the faster boats sail off having beat the tidal gate? 

When you start with 30 boats, 5 of which are faster and spend the rest of the race in clear breeze whilst you fight for position? 

The big wind shift which leave the slower boats completing their last lap without doing one tack? 

Yeah, some of those issues even out over a series, but who completes a series? Other are built in to how racing is formatted at your club. 

And how will you ever distill sailor skill from boat potential? 

If you're frustrated by strict designs and want to tinker, race and build in a development class. If you'd rather just buy off the peg and race then do that. 

But don't get turned over, declare it the boats fault for not being suited to your 'style' then go off buying random boats to find your advantage all the while diluting the experience of people you want fair competition. 

I doubt  know it'll ever be that perfect. Slightly unreasonable expecting it to be.

A couple of alternative "official lists" using data from tidal locations would be a big improvement IMO

There does seem to be an element of "it's not perfect so it's rubbish"......if the whole world operated on that basis  we would all be bachelors.
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 5:12pm
Originally posted by mozzy

If there's another 200 out, I'm racing that boat, if there isn't, I'm just going for a cruise. The vagaries of the handicap system are too much to distill any feedback from my own performance  relative to other to be worth paying attention to.

Not sure I agree entirely with that. As I get better though I can see that it will be a less useful performance marker than at present but my only racing is on handicap, at the end of each I get a result. At the moment those results are back of the fleet but as I learn to sail the Blaze I expect to achieve some better results (already have a couple actually) demonstrating that I'm getting better at sailing it. For now it doesn't matter whether the PNs are representative, I'm sailing against the same boats (more or less) so if I see a trend towards the front I'll be happy that I'm improving.

When I win I want it to be because I have done well; I have designed a good boat, I have constructed a fast boat, because I have hiked harder and sailed faster or less distance. I want winning to be because of something I do.

Yup, agree.


Edited by Sam.Spoons - 07 Mar 17 at 5:12pm
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 7:17pm
Originally posted by mozzy



]When I win I want it to be because I have done well; I have designed a good boat, I have constructed a fast boat, because I have hiked harder and sailed faster or less distance. I want winning to be because of something I do.


And wouldn't that be a wonderful environment in which to compete instead of what we have at present, where the wonderful new boat you designed will be penalised out of the gate and unless you have the marketing clout, or finance to buy up the beach your design will languish forever in obscurity.

But what if there were an environment where designers were encouraged, performance quotient issued immediately, crew handicap used according to skill level alongside to combine to give a result, with scratch riders proud to sail scratch and newer sailors striving to reduce their handicap.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 8:28pm
But iGRF, what you will have is people designing and buying boats to take advantage of rating /qoutient system.

If that's your thing, there are many development classes you can join where instead of rating rules, you design, construct and sail a boat which takes best advantage from class rules. 

The key is... you race on scratch. The winner is the winner. If you want to make design part of the competition that's fine, choose a development class. 

But to mash it all in to one big handicap system ruins it for me for the reasons up thread. I don't want my sport to be about 'choosing' the right boat, and even with your rating system that would still be the case.


Edited by mozzy - 07 Mar 17 at 9:08pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 8:38pm
Originally posted by Sam.Spoons

Originally posted by mozzy

If there's another 200 out, I'm racing that boat, if there isn't, I'm just going for a cruise. The vagaries of the handicap system are too much to distill any feedback from my own performance  relative to other to be worth paying attention to.

Not sure I agree entirely with that. As I get better though I can see that it will be a less useful performance marker than at present but my only racing is on handicap, at the end of each I get a result. At the moment those results are back of the fleet but as I learn to sail the Blaze I expect to achieve some better results (already have a couple actually) demonstrating that I'm getting better at sailing it. For now it doesn't matter whether the PNs are representative, I'm sailing against the same boats (more or less) so if I see a trend towards the front I'll be happy that I'm improving.

When I win I want it to be because I have done well; I have designed a good boat, I have constructed a fast boat, because I have hiked harder and sailed faster or less distance. I want winning to be because of something I do.

Yup, agree.

I think, we'd all become better sailors if we sailed scratch races in boats we're not ideally bio-mechanically suited for; even if that highlights our own physical limitations. Much better than trying to compare ourselves to someone sailing a completely different class. 

Obviously there is now way of knowing for sure, but here have been races where I've been alongside another class, until a reach where they have planed, and I have not. In one leg I've lost 20-seconds. If that reach had been 5 degrees tighter it would have been a different story. There must be loads of situations like that which add up to minutes in my favour or against; each one in now way related to my sailing performance.

Yes, you're right, over time if you are improving, you'd expect to see your results generally improve. But if you want to learn week on week it's just impossible to extract any useful information from the results related to your performance (despite the handicaps giving the impression of that accuracy). Want to test running more kicker? You'll have to wait a season before you'll see a difference, if at all. 

And that's why for me, it will never work. Every conversation we have about handicaps and what's the best way to fix them is a conversation that damages the sport. We should be talking about technique, tactics: things that are positive that we can do to improve our sailing!


Edited by mozzy - 07 Mar 17 at 8:51pm
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Posts: 822 		Post Options Post Options   Quote PeterG Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 8:47pm
I used to race in a fleet which was mostly a few Contenders and a few more Lasers.

We all knew that in light winds we'd be thrashed on handicap by the Lasers, but we could have fun trying to race them on the water - if you could stay ahead of a Laser in light winds you were doing well. We also all knew that if the wind increased a bit (and as long as you didn't decide to have a cooling dip) the Lasers would in turn get thrashed.

We all knew that, we all accepted that, and we all enjoyed the racing. That surely is what handicap racing is about. There's no viable real world  handicapping system that is going to level that one out. Any handicapping system is a compromise to allow people to choose to both sail the boat they want and to make at least an attempt at allowing interesting non class racing. It will never do more than that so why waste so much effort worrying about it?
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 9:23pm
Originally posted by mozzy

I think, we'd all become better sailors if we sailed scratch races in boats we're not ideally bio-mechanically suited for; even if that highlights our own physical limitations. Much better than trying to compare ourselves to someone sailing a completely different class.
 

So your logical conclusion is that we should all sail L@sers?

Obviously there is now way of knowing for sure, but here have been races where I've been alongside another class, until a reach where they have planed, and I have not. In one leg I've lost 20-seconds. If that reach had been 5 degrees tighter it would have been a different story. There must be loads of situations like that which add up to minutes in my favour or against; each one in now way related to my sailing performance.

And many situations where I've been alongside the same class, until a reach where they have planed, and I have not. In one leg I've lost 20-seconds.

Yes, you're right, over time if you are improving, you'd expect to see your results generally improve. But if you want to learn week on week it's just impossible to extract any useful information from the results related to your performance (despite the handicaps giving the impression of that accuracy). Want to test running more kicker? You'll have to wait a season before you'll see a difference, if at all.

Yes, I did acknowledge that it doesn't work for fine tuning, boat on boat training/racing is the only way to achieve that. If you're that keen to improve the only option is one design racing.

And that's why for me, it will never work. Every conversation we have about handicaps and what's the best way to fix them is a conversation that damages the sport. We should be talking about technique, tactics: things that are positive that we can do to improve our sailing!

No argument there but I don't accept that it damages the sport, how many beginner do you see entering into these discussions? What damages the sport is when beginners are not helped to feel wanted/accepted and not being given the opportunity to experience the freedom sailing can give.

My memories of learning to sail in the '60s are of being given some basic instruction and then being pushed off in an Oppie and allowed to work out how to sail it (while my dad watched, probably much more closely than he let on). Being allowed to go out in the boat and sink it with a few mates, being allowed to go out in my Heron at 13 years old, singlehanded in F5, and just blast up and down. It was fun, it was an adventure and there was not a sign of H&S (it was there, I guess, in the form of the grown ups, but was well hidden).

Sorry, rant over......  Wink


Edited by Sam.Spoons - 07 Mar 17 at 9:26pm
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 10:01pm
No the logical conclusion isn't that we all sail lasers, it's that we should all sail scratch, whatever class that may be, often they will be suited to local conditions. If numbers support it, split the fleets to cover more specific weight / body types. But... if you've only got four boats turning up to a handicap race, then yes, maybe you should all get lasers...

At the end of the day, it's a sport, it's physical, if putting on a bit of muscle, or loosing a bit of chub is what's required, then so be it. However, i genuinely weight isn't as limiting as people make out, certainly at a club level. 

At the club as a junior when i first started there were a couple of toppers. But latter none (a few more came through a year or so after me). So I decided to sail a radial and full rig, despite being only 55-62 kg. It was much more fun than sailing in a menagerie against comets and mirrors. 

I think it's damaging for the sport because there is too much emphasis on handicap racing. It would be fine if it was a charity race here or there, but to be the mainstay of so many peoples sailing?

And yes, even to beginners it makes little sense. What other sports have a handicapped equipment where results are worked out hours or days after the race has finished? As a beginner you want to watch and learn techniques used by others. You want clear and immediate feedback on what you're doing... sailing is hard enough as it without telling someone they have to wait until Tuesday to find out how they did!


Edited by mozzy - 07 Mar 17 at 10:05pm
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 10:01pm
Okay, I've taken the pink pill and I've calmed down now  Wink ........

So, is there anybody here who has consciously sold one boat and bought another just because of the PN (and I don't mean to buy a boat that has local class racing)?

Novices aren't interested in the PY system, those who are class racing have no interest in the PY system, so it 's just those of us who chose to race classes that don't have local class racing or at clubs that have no class racing (as it happens I fit into both those categories). So do you buy this year's bandit or sail a boat you like and enjoy having a good moan on the side (I'm the latter BTW)?


Edited by Sam.Spoons - 07 Mar 17 at 10:32pm
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Posts: 1459 		Post Options Post Options   Quote sargesail Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Mar 17 at 10:10pm
I think we're in one of those cyclical periods when the aberration that is widespread handicap racing is in a stronger period than class racing.  You can trace this through the history of sailboat racing.  What has brought it about at the moment:
1.  Increased cost of travel which means sailors are less inclined to cover distances to sail against other 'class racers'.
2.  A longer season due to improved kit which as enabled the surge in Winter handicap events.
3.  Aggressive promotion of handicap racing by an interested group in the industry.
4.  Some high volume sales of new classes which nevertheless take time to build class racing mass (Aeros and Zeros)

But I think we'll begin to see a swing back in the next couple of years because:
1.  Class fragmentation / new boat launch fratricide will slow down - why - because the industry will milk foiling for cash rather than launching new boats in the same numbers (and foiling will be found not to be the future for lot's of the reasons already covered on this forum (plus the fact that as a number of my friends have commented it's 'fast but dull'.
2.  They'll be a resurgence in some SMODs like the 800.
3.  The RS Games in 2018 will have a big influence - because people will go and class race but also have the sure side fun with mates from other classes.  This will become an alternative model to big handicap racing.
4.  The momentum of the Winter Handicaps will fall off and be replaced, for some keen classes, by Winter Class racing (note the numbers of D Zeros in their Class within a HAndicap Winter racing).
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