The Fuller Number

Maybe you're expecting too much folks. What we have here is a simple calculation that takes the biggest design factors and predicts the sort of area a mainstream design spinnaker free boat will end up in. If this had been available to the icon people, for instance, they might have realised just how much extra speed potential they'd put in the boat during their development process and been able to offer a less comical estimate for their PY and spared us all the hissy fit when the experimental number was published. Similarly potential Aero or whatever owners can look at it and get an independent picture of roughly how quick the boats will be.
From what I can see few boats are more than about 5% different from PY and many are much closer, which I regard as a praiseworthy bit of work.

But, and its a big but, if you want to go further than there and produce something that is a real prediction of performance, and hit the sort of accuracy people here are demanding, you need to be able to spot the differences that seem to make an epoxy foam carbon mast etc Phantom around 5% faster than a wood one, or an Italian Bistro Cherub so much quicker than an Ellway mk4, and the audience here probably wants a target of better than 5points PY, which is an order of magnitude greater accuracy. That's a substantial challenge. There's also the problem of how do you know you've got it right?

It kept me amused during a boring day at work...

Of course it wouldn't work as-is as a development class, and even more so wouldn't work as a replacement for PY. But it does open the door to a slightly different way of looking at things - a class based on these ideas, but refined to ensure it isn't boats on the extreme of the design envelope that are fastest, could make for a nice simple development singlehander.

Mostly, though, it shows me that it is possible to get an experimental PY for a boat with a fairly traditional shape (and both the Aero and Zero have this) which may not be a million miles out from reality, therefore not causing shouts from the rooftops when the real numbers start to show in the returns.

Originally posted by JimC Maybe you're expecting too much folks. What we have here is a simple calculation that takes the biggest design factors and predicts the sort of area a mainstream design spinnaker free boat will end up in. If this had been available to the icon people, for instance, they might have realised just how much extra speed potential they'd put in the boat during their development process and been able to offer a less comical estimate for their PY and spared us all the hissy fit when the experimental number was published. Similarly potential Aero or whatever owners can look at it and get an independent picture of roughly how quick the boats will be. From what I can see few boats are more than about 5% different from PY and many are much closer, which I regard as a praiseworthy bit of work.

My question then and I had assumed all along you had a magic formula already you were keeping to yourself, is, how were you deciding what an EN number should be? Don't think for one moment you're off the hook with me over the Icon that you have deprived me of, that boat competed in a close fleet at 1020 and came far from the front with supposedly skilled helms on exactly the water it was designed for. Your problem as I've said so often is you're quite clearly in such a muddle you've no idea where your basis point is, whereas, had you had such a mathematical calculation such as this to start with, you would at least have some point to anchor to rather than the gerrymandered stats that now whirl around you.

This formula of Peakys simple as it is could be broadened to be more accurate, but I don't think that's needed, what's needed is a combination of both, and fixing of boats positions if they don't materially change. Lasers are not getting slower, they've been built the same way for years, them being artificially pushed into bandit territory to satisfy whatever Agenda is creating the anomaly may be fine amongst you chatterati, but it's not helping us at the grass roots, we just hate the system all the more...

Edited by iGRF - 23 Apr 14 at 7:22pm

Hmm, ignoring the G word, doesn't the Icon come out on Peaky's system as similar to the EN?

I could give a damn what it's called, but the fact it is here and at last we're talking sensibly about something rooted in good cold hard maths rather than random inland bufferdom is a good thing, I'm too old to have an ego, but i don't want to continue the few good years I've got left suffering this current nonsense, mine and many others pastimes spoilt because of the preponderance of statistics from one type of conditions.

As it is I've played and played the formula and it's just as wrong as the current yardstick, which is understandable since it was presumably derived from the mess that currently exists, but it does at least provide a basis upon which to build something meaningful which is all I've been asking for.

I'm rejigging it a bit in a spreadsheet, separated the crew and boat weights and am now trying to work on a method to take into account Traps and Spinnakers it could easily be set up so anyone can input enough to set up their own handicap, I think it's an amazing breakthrough and can't thank Peaky/Toby enough even though it still is inland biased.