PY Inland vs Sea

I dont get that.  Some of the biggest races in the UK sailing calender are PY races.  With arguably the biggest prizes on the table!  I seem to remember Andy Smith winning £1000 at the tiger trophy a few years back!  To say its just for fun kind of misses the point.99% of sailors in the UK do it just for fun, be it big fleet or handicap racing.  Its always going to be a hobby for most.  But suggesting PY racing shouldnt be taken seriously is paying a diservice to all of those sailors that travel hours in the cold to compete in the Bloody Mary.  

I sometimes think that it would be good to treat every boat that has finished within say ten seconds of another to have tied with it. It would reflect that handicaps are an approximation, and all too often our recorded finishing times are too. Multiple ties would want a bit of work though. However every time I've dreamed up what I think is a superior system in the past, when I've applied it to real world results the actual change in series scores seems minimal. More ties might keep series alive for longer I suppose, but that's about it.

Originally posted by Null I know for sure i would rather win the Bloody Mary or The Lord Birket than a small class Nationals.

Originally posted by davidyacht Originally posted by Null I know for sure i would rather win the Bloody Mary or The Lord Birket than a small class Nationals. I would rather be in the top 10 at a big class Nationals than win one of the Big Winter Handicap events ... as a previous Grafham Grand Prix Winner. Then I think that every club should only accept members if they are prepared to sail the classes that the club races ... though I accept that this may be a minority view! The joy is not in the type of boat you sail, but in the quality of the boat on boat racing ... you can try and recreate this in PY but there will always be dissatisfaction. As an anecdote; We raced a Salcombe Yawl in Chichester Snowflake a few years ago with the official PY.  Each week they knocked 1 minute off our handicap, until we stopped winning, I thought that this was quite a sensible and pragmatic approach and never complained, it made the racing more interesting and challenging.   It is for the challenge that we go racing, isn't it?

Originally posted by Null Sure taking the podium at something like the Merlin nationals is far more prestigious,

Is it?

Prestigious to who?

I don't care who he or she is, it's a bloody old boat filled with bits of string, so complicated they all have to get drunk afterwards.

The only thing they're known for is breaking the bar record at Salcombe S.C.

The most prestigious? I would have thought that event where they invite everyone and torture them by making them sail some washing up bowl.

That I guess and the Olympics.

Winning a "nationals' in some class where it's the same old same old 50 or 60 people, sorry no prestige in that, certainly not impressing me.

I bet the GP14 National Champion is a household name - er Not.

I agree the Birket or Bloody Mary I like to know who won, but the entire Great Lakes Series? Who cares..

I don't even know who won the Round island event, it'll be some Cat, they're a Cat club these days, I only noticed Mike blagged a good result and credit to him, was I happy that he 'got away with it' not really, but if that's the way of things, then so be it, so I'll now look at his boat with a view to maybe getting one.

Commercial success these days appears to be for who can best manipulate the PY system, if you are not a big enough Marketing organisation to ignore it, what a tragic position we find ourselves in.