The PY system
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Dinghy classes
Forum Name: Dinghy development
Forum Discription: The latest moves in the dinghy market
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10765
Printed Date: 17 Jul 25 at 4:19pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: The PY system
Posted By: iGRF
Subject: The PY system
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:22pm
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Further to that thread, we're making lots of noise what does the silent majority think?
Simple yes no. |
Replies:
Posted By: winging it
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:29pm
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this sums up my feelings. Silent no more [TUBE]xqOMuR5Z530[/TUBE] ------------- the same, but different... |
Posted By: Contender443
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:37pm
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I wonder who the 1 is ?? I bet they would have voted no for the Falklands remaining British as well..
------------- Bonnie Lass Contender 1764 |
Posted By: SoggyBadger
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:44pm
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I couldn't give a flying f**k. The only racing that matters is fleet racing. Anything else is just larking about.
------------- Best wishes from deep in the woods SB |
Posted By: pondmonkey
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:45pm
 ------------- |
Posted By: getafix
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:52pm
there was no button for "too busy going sailing or thinking about going sailing" so I didn't vote 
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Posted By: scotsfinn
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 1:59pm
Just go sailing in a good boat and stop talking about it. You know if you're good because you've no time to post on this forum .... That' s me declared my sailing abilty then ...  ------------- Largs Sailing Club. D-Zero GBR 57, B14 744 www.blueseaconsultingllp.com |
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 2:09pm
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Within the parameters of the system it is getting better. I still think that fundermentally it should be a 3 figure system, as the stats really don't add upfor a 4 figure one. Too many variables in crew skill, weather, location and boat tune. It just means people whinge a lot about a 10 point change - far more than they would about a 1 point one... ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: Medway Maniac
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 2:21pm
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Too right Rupert. 4 sig figs is beyond the wit of man. I'm sure that with all the extra feedback thanks to clubs' results uploads, the figures must be becoming more representative. I just wish that instead of encouraging us to make local corrections (and spoiling the atmosphere at our clubs), the RYA would give some ball-park corrections or, better, separate tables for inland, sea and tidal. These could be established by calculation. We've considered introducing a tidal correction based on sound maths at WSC, but while nobody doubted that it would skew the results towards increased validity, we decided not to use them because of the fuss and discontentment it would cause. If the same set of numbers came off an RYA table there would be no complaints (alright, fewer complaints - some people will use any opportunity!) ------------- http://www.wilsoniansc.org.uk" rel="nofollow - Wilsonian SC http://www.3000class.org.uk" rel="nofollow - 3000 Class |
Posted By: pondmonkey
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 2:26pm
didn't Alex hint that such a functionality would feature on the next release of the spreadsheets? I agree it crosses out the issue of accusations of 'Little Hitlers' when someone simply proposes to use the system as per the current recommended operating procedure. The history is nicely documented here: http://www.rya.org.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/technical/Web%20Documents/py-general/RYA_G01_Panel_15_2000x1500_07.pdf - http://www.rya.org.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/technical/Web%20Documents/py-general/RYA_G01_Panel_15_2000x1500_07.pdf ------------- |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 2:53pm
| I can only think that GRF doesn't understand how dead and unresponsive the old system had become. |
Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 3:17pm
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Truth is, GRF up until now had no idea how the system functioned, nor really cared until it appeared to be going totally haywire as it has just lately. In our world it never worked so we didn't even bother trying sailboards being so wind responsive.
Having said that I voted worse, because I feel it is being gerrymandered to suit inland water values AND the idea of getting clubs to alter locally is flawed for all the reasons previously discussed. Most of you sail on inland water so you would think it's getting better, it 'suits you sir', so now all that leaves me to do as an option is either put up or shut up, or flog the Alto and buy an L3k and go pot hunting this season.. They'll love that down at Hythe
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Posted By: pondmonkey
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 3:46pm
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Do it, you would at least be living up to your own hype that folks buy boats purely to win handicap races. ------------- |
Posted By: mongrel
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 3:46pm
 Quite agree, writing moaning threads about PY racing is on par with threads about why you didn't win the Christmas do raffle!
If you want serious racing, join your class association, get your boat measured, and attend/support some open meetings.
Stop moaning about a game of chance, treat it as practice for the open meetings!
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Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 3:59pm
What't the matter can't you find any cat sailors or jet skiers to abuse
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Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 4:10pm
| Class racing is for http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FX9rviEhw - Sheep |
Posted By: winging it
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 5:08pm
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but gruff, we never see you race, py or otherwise..... in fact I've never seen you, full stop. May be you don't really exist.... ------------- the same, but different... |
Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 5:33pm
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That's because you keep avoiding me..
Can't think why,,
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Posted By: Rockhopper
Date Posted: 13 Mar 13 at 6:23pm
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I bought my current boat as there was already 13 in our club as for py i never used to worry too much about it so long as i enjoyed my race and went home knackered that was all that mattered at the time.And i have over the last five years had five different boats all i enjoyed and never bought any just the handicap rating is it getting yes i think it is ------------- Retired now after 35 seasons in a row and time for a rest. 2004 national champ Laser5000 2007,2010,National Champ Rs Vareo |
Posted By: pondmonkey
Date Posted: 16 Mar 13 at 6:18pm
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45 responses, nearly 90% think it's getting better...
... Well done PYAG  ------------- |
Posted By: Contender443
Date Posted: 16 Mar 13 at 6:27pm
And the other 11% are not happy that their handicap has gone the wrong way (or sail against Miracles every week)  ------------- Bonnie Lass Contender 1764 |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 16 Mar 13 at 7:31pm
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I'm wondering how many alter egos GRF has on Y&Y ........at least 2 I know of
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Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 16 Mar 13 at 10:49pm
Doesn't help I'm afraid, that voting thing seems to work on the IP, no matter which I log in with they both say I've voted already, maybe if I logged on with the iphone it would but for what, clearly the majority are happy, no point arguing any further, as usual y'all are wrong and I'm right.
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Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 16 Mar 13 at 11:05pm
That's the majority of the 50 keyboard heroes who've voted, says very little about the 50,000 active PY racers. |
Posted By: Koops
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 8:42am
| Perhaps not all keyboard heroes....How do we know who's voted? |
Posted By: pondmonkey
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 8:43am
Well as we can assume those 50000 aren't pushing pedals, kicking balls, genuflecting in church or itching a scratch over Jenna Jameson on the Internet whilst competing in said PY racing, I would suggest they are also happy to continue with the sport and find it satisfies their needs. ------------- |
Posted By: Andymac
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 9:20am
Ah, so you don't deny you were trying to rig the voting! There's plenty of opportunities for a man of your talents in dictator states around the world
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Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 9:48am
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No it's just both my personalities felt they had a right to vote, even though as is often the case, their opposing views can be very self defeating.
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Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 11:50am
Jenna Jameson.........what class does she sail then? |
Posted By: Andymac
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 5:43pm
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Posted By: Late starter
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 10:32pm
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I think the PY scheme as administered by the RYA is probably as good as it can be, given all the variables inherent within it. However, what I really don't like is seeing clubs using local adjustments based on 1 or 2 boats in a class, hence they're really running personal handicap racing. A club I know has increased the handicap of a class by 5% because the guys sailing weren't capable of flying it's spinny !! |
Posted By: Medway Maniac
Date Posted: 17 Mar 13 at 10:57pm
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I guess a good rule of thumb might be not to amend locally unless the "confidence factor" is 0.7 or greater. Ours are 0.1 at best, so definitely a bad idea to make local adjustments! ------------- http://www.wilsoniansc.org.uk" rel="nofollow - Wilsonian SC http://www.3000class.org.uk" rel="nofollow - 3000 Class |
Posted By: sargesail
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 1:03am
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Love the proximity of these last two posts. The first shows up a glaring abuse of the system (but one which is potentially ideally supported by the data. And the second shows the down side of a blinkered statiscal approach - confidence factor is good so it must be OK!
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Posted By: rb_stretch
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 8:34am
In theory I agree. In practice I can see some need to break it. For example, where there is a factor (eg. tide, current) that can be applied to all boats in a methodical way then I think adjusting all classes even if there is only 1 boat is the fair and right thing to do. The fact the adjustment is applied in a methodical way should hopefully remove the crew skill factor. The other issue I can think of is when a crew is so light that they can't sail the boat above force 4. If they only sail the light wind races they effectively have a better handicap. The point for me is that there must be a clear reason for the change which isn't crew skill factor. |
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 9:14am
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In the case of a boat which should have a spinnaker, but in a particular example doesn't (ie, there is no rigging even for it) you could say that to get fair racing, the handicap should be adjusted to allow for this. In effect, the boat has become a different class. I guess an example of this would be an original Fireball. No trap, no spinnaker. Be daft to send it off the same PY, wouldn't it? And by extension, a more modern Fireball converted to how they once were, too. You would then start the "new boat" process to get a fair rating. On the other hand, just because someone is crap at using a spinnaker, it shouldn't be a reason for change. ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: Medway Maniac
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 10:40am
What alternative rule of thumb would you use, then? Or would you simply not make local adjustments in order to avoid any possibility of a "glaring abuse"? Given how hard it must be to reach a confidence factor of 0.7 (judging by our experience of just 0.0 or 0.1 after 3 years of returns to the website), I would imagine that glaring abuses would be pretty much ruled out by my suggestion. Certainly the single boat of the example would not get above 0.0. If the boat absolutely never used the kite than any return should maybe be for a spinnakerless boat: the RYA stress that they want returns to include details of the boats as sailed, such as (2|S|A||) after the class name.
------------- http://www.wilsoniansc.org.uk" rel="nofollow - Wilsonian SC http://www.3000class.org.uk" rel="nofollow - 3000 Class |
Posted By: AlexM
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 12:00pm
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Medway Maniac
Here's an extract of the kinds of data required to get high c.f. (If the data is stable) 
What we do when we've only got small c.f. is apply a % of the change. Here's the table i use CF % 0.0 0% use RYA number 0.1 20% 0.2 40% 0.3 60% 0.4 80% 0.5 100% Alex ------------- |
Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 12:51pm
Does only applying a fraction of the change just mean that next time the PY is recalculated, another fraction of the correction is applied? So the same number results in the end, it just gets there asymptotically? e.g 1/2 the change, 3/4, 7/8 etc?
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Posted By: AlexM
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 12:57pm
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Yes, so in the case of the 100 (0.1 c.f) We'd only use 20% of the change (996-981= 15*20% -3 PY = 993 . So nothing really.
Once you get to about 0.5 c.f. the pdf file gets a stamp of authority from RYA Alex ------------- |
Posted By: Medway Maniac
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 2:02pm
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I see the logic in that, and if WSC was peopled by Swedes or others dedicated to reasonableness at all costs then I might propose doing it. As it is, an 0.7 cut-off makes a good excuse not to change anything and not to upset absolutely everybody. We decided to use the RYA recommendations to establish PN's for classes that didn't have any, like the Alto and V3000, but even then it caused upset (and frankly I am upset that my V3k h'cap is in reality a group-personal handicap), loss of confidence in the system and, I believe, a fall-off in turn-out. Maybe if club members studied the system thoroughly they might accept some tinkering, but they don't and won't. We avoided introducing a set of tidally-adjusted PN's for the same reason, despite highly plausible maths and a clear desirability. ------------- http://www.wilsoniansc.org.uk" rel="nofollow - Wilsonian SC http://www.3000class.org.uk" rel="nofollow - 3000 Class |
Posted By: AlexM
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 2:24pm
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I think what we are doing is the fairest way. E.g. the majority of the 100 results are mine so it could be close to a personal h'cap. However only applying a % of the change when the c.f is so low i'm not going to worry about 3 PY points! It'll take an age for the system to get to a very high c.f. with a single boat so im not losing any sleep over it ------------- |
Posted By: Medway Maniac
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 2:33pm
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Regardless of whether it's fair, any change - even by one point - is like putting a stick into an ants nest so far as members' reactions are concerned. Just not worth souring the atmosphere for. ------------- http://www.wilsoniansc.org.uk" rel="nofollow - Wilsonian SC http://www.3000class.org.uk" rel="nofollow - 3000 Class |
Posted By: redders
Date Posted: 18 Mar 13 at 3:41pm
I agree with AlexM. We also have applied a percentage of the difference depending on the confidence factor. What has happened is that it is the ability levels of sailors in differing boats that is evening up results and therefore an average sailor in a boat that has had the Py dropped is now racing against an average sailor in a boat that has had an uplift in Py. Much closer racing throughout the handicap fleet! The better sailors are still winning and the poorest are still loosing! Yes, when there is only 1 boat in a class racing then it is effectivly a personal handicap, and this is where the issues with a very small number of members has occured. There may be an arguement for leaving the Py as is without a number of boats in a class. However the confidence factor will always be low without numbers racing and any adjustment will be small relative to the Py the individual is sailing their boat to. It is certainly working for us so far. Redders ------------- The older I get the faster I was! |