Handicap - A Final Solution?

Agree about class racing never coming back (at least not for a long, long time) disagree with pretty much everything else. The PY system is based on fact - the fact of elapsed time of boats round race courses everywhere in the country on all sorts of different water. What you seem to want is something based in theory - the theory of how fast a boat goes based on how fast it went on one particular day, or even based on how fast it should go due to measurements on a computer programme. Given how different 2 dinghies can be, even with the same basic parameters, the latter is never going to work, and the former will be based on so little data you would be complaining all the time about how wrong it was, how it hadn't been done in the particular waves you get at Hythe, etc, etc, etc.

Something I've noticed about the current system is how rarely I get beaten by people who were obviously sailing worse than me. If you feel this happens a lot, it might have something to do with how you view your sailing ability in comparison to reality...

If a boat actually leaves the race course goes back to shore to retrieve a buoyancy vest whilst the fleet starts, lead by a helm and craft that has just finished 3rd in a fairly major handicap event in Poole, that boat then returns to the line 4 minutes later, starts and goes on to win the race on handicap, followed by about every other Laser, in those circumstances, something is very wrong.

However good the helm with or without kinetic input a Laser should only travel plus or minus 10% distance in a given 1000 secs and it would have travelled exactly the same distance +-10% in 1983 as it would in 2013 is the point in question here.

There needs to be a clearly defined performance index of a given boat to start with, before you puddle jumpers get in there with your gerrymandering which is screwing up the coastal dwellers

Don't even start with returns, all that is doing is making the situation worse because there is no base line that is reliable.

Edited by iGRF - 06 Sep 13 at 1:00pm

And that is the point - the Laser has barely changed since 1973 - the new gizmos have made it a bit easier to sail in a gale, that is about it. Solos, Enterprises, Miracles, Streakers, Phantoms have all got faster. In fact, the majority of dinghies, due to changes in hull construction, sail making, understanding of what makes a fast boat, have all got faster at a similar rate. Because they are all moving at a roughly similar speed in terms of progress, you don't see any comparative changes amongst most of the boats, but go and race a 1965 Solo, fresh out of the box, against a new one, and the speed difference will be obvious to see. Boats which haven't seen so much progress (the strict SMODS, for example) will get comparatively slower. What seems to happen, then, is that the boat which is only getting faster by a fraction will appear to be getting slower.

In your particular situation with the Laser going back to the beach, maybe you were concentrating so hard on being upset by this boat sailing through the fleet and coming up behind you that you forgot to look at your own sailing.

And maybe, if Hythe and other sea clubs got together and compared notes on Laser results, they could see if there is a genuine, non crew skill factor problem, and if so, make local changes.

Not beyond the wit of man to talk to other clubs rather than just complain "its not fair", is it? I've failed to keep up with what information is available on the Yardstick site - is it possible to look at returns from other individual clubs on line? If so, you might not even have to talk...

Originally posted by transient there are a significant number of folk in the sport who have no interest in a fairer PY system, in fact they take advantage of the imperfections.

And isn't that sad?

Originally posted by Peaky Originally posted by transient there are a significant number of folk in the sport who have no interest in a fairer PY system, in fact they take advantage of the imperfections.  And isn't that sad?

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