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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Personal Handicaps
    Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 5:01am
Yeah, always seems like trouble to me when our race teams set a short course for a pursuit. I think race teams are well advised to make them as long as possible. After all it doesn't really matter if the sailors don't even finish a lap, and IME there's something very dispiriting about needing to unlap yourself.
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 8:29am
Agree on the long course thing - can remember sailing a Mirror in a pursuit in very little wind when Rupertson was tiny, and we'd done 2 laps before anyone else started. We then continued to overtake people, which confused the RO even more!

As for sailing instructions for the pursuit - a few years ago I rewrote them to reflect what the better race officers were doing, but you can't stop people getting the wrong end of the stick every now and again! This Sunday's race was 3 minutes short for some reason - never did find out why.
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 9:42am
I've said all this before, but it is relevant so I'll say it again.

Down here, personal handicaps are everywhere. Probably most races have a personal handicap score, from offshore boats to Optis. For some awful reason most cruiser/racers race ONLY on personal handicap which is appalling, but normally in dinghies there is a scratch result and a personal handicap one. Personal handicaps are actually very prominent in the 18s and other skiffs and IMHO it's part of the reason we have strong skiff classes - most people are just hoping to get a personal handicap win so it doesn't matter if the boat is too hard for them to handle or of an outmoded design; they just sail their best and have a blast, and if they do better than normal they will get a handicap win (and the big skiff clubs give you about $300+ for a weekly personal handicap win, so it's good beer money).

Sure, personal handicaps may seem condescending; but that's surely just a cultural thing. In other sports it's accepted that you will get a handicap or be graded, and similarly down here in Oz it's accepted that you get a personal handicap that matches your performance. It actually goes the other way in cycling - some people try to get down to a lower grade to get a win. Strange behaviour, but it shows that being handicapped as a slower sportsperson is not always seen as something to be concerned about.

Basically, when slow sailors do better than usual, what's wrong with giving them a pat on the back?Golfers do it, and golf is one of the biggest sports around. Other clubs do it by dividing people into grades, which is effectively the same thing. And studies and commentators have noted that a major trend these days is people doing triathlons or fun runs to beat a personal target rather than to beat the other competitors. Personal handicaps seem to fit that modern trend.

So there are many reasons to have personal handicaps routinely, and very few reasons not to do so.
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Posts: 478 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iiitick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 11:53am
"A pat on the back?" Do I get sweeties and a gold star as well?
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Posts: 317 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Blue One Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 12:31pm
Originally posted by JimC

Yeah, always seems like trouble to me when our race teams set a short course for a pursuit. I think race teams are well advised to make them as long as possible. After all it doesn't really matter if the sailors don't even finish a lap, and IME there's something very dispiriting about needing to unlap yourself.

The problem we have is its very hard to set a really long course when you sail on 8 acres!
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 12:44pm
You can criss cross it several times, but that is as confusing as doing more laps!

Just sail very slow boats and you'll be fine...
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Medway Maniac View Drop Down
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Posts: 2788 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Medway Maniac Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 2:21pm
I'm becoming persuaded through this thread (there' a first!) that dual-scoring might be a good idea.  Golfers do seem to view improving their handicap as something motivating, after all.

That said, like Grumph, I don't think I'd feel I'd really won just because I'd been given an easier handicap, so I'd personally like a system in which the result was the absolute result on RYA PYs, but along with the result my current handicap got spat out, so that I could see how I was doing compared to my past performances.  

Sailwave can, of course, produce BCR numbers which show the PY you actually sailed to in a race (winner gets the boat's PY, the rest the PY they would have needed to win), but what I'm missing there is my average BCR hitherto to compare to.
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 3:01pm
Funny, I'm having my mind changed not about dual scoring (the 2nd set of results doesn't really seem meaningful to me) but about personal pursuits. This gives sailors an opportunity to be sailing (and be ahead of) people they normally see disappearing off into the distance. I'm not sure I see a close bunch at the end as a good thing for the RO, but it is for the competitors.
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iGRF View Drop Down
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Posts: 6499 		Post Options Post Options   Quote iGRF Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 3:12pm
They run a personal handicap at Hythe I think it's in the back end of the year and it is good to see folk who wouldn't normally be in the prizes podium. Most of them view the handicap system with puzzlement anyway so one handicap that puts them closer to the front than the other is fair enough.

I've never looked at the results, don't know, don't want to know and would not want to be in the prizes because of it, they do dual score however, which is fine, I like to know that bit just for reference if I feel I've gotten close enough.

I like that idea of the result chasing the helm, I've had no real series results this year what with Trev & the Alto dropping out due to health, then the odd boats I've been in and out of, each craft counts as a separate entry, I'm sure had my personal results counted I'd probably have been in the chocolates purely because I turned up more this year than most albeit in different boats.

So if I had a handicap that went with me personally and a way could be worked out that I reduced that if I did well, then that would work for me in a goal seeking kind of way, with scratch being the ultimate goal. The problem still arises however, in that how do we come to scratch, what is that?
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Do Different View Drop Down
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Posts: 1312 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Do Different Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Nov 14 at 4:31pm
Not sure exactly how you would administer it, but I can see the merit it personal ratings.

After all I guess Football is well up there as a participant sport in the UK and that has a an extensive league system. In fact thinking about it most sports have a league system. But then still thinking further, leagues allow equal standards to play each off scratch. Damn, talked myself round in a circle now! 

Back to the same old complication that keeps coming round and round; we don't all use the same equipment (sail the same classes that is) , it would be a lot easier to administer and see it working if we did. Confused
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