Which Clubs use modified PY numbers
Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: General
Forum Name: Race Management
Forum Discription: For race officers and competiors to discuss the topic
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11055
Printed Date: 27 Jun 25 at 3:15am
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Topic: Which Clubs use modified PY numbers
Posted By: transient
Subject: Which Clubs use modified PY numbers
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 3:55pm
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Which Clubs use a modified list? Are these clubs greater in number than say 4 yrs ago?
Which clubs that modify publish their list online? (I'd love to have a butchers) |
Replies:
Posted By: marke
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 4:15pm
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Starcross YC do - we are just starting the third year of local adjustments We review them every year in late August and apply them from the start of our Autumn Series in October each year. The analysis compares the data collected in the previous year against the RYA numbers, the Great Lakes numbers and our entire database going back 4 years. We also do an analysis based on the top sailors in each fleet. [Once the RYA releases the "clubs like mine" facility on PYS we will build our own custom group of similar clubs]. The numbers we use are shown on our results pages - but when I update the numbers in our race management database this month I'll sort out a page on the website with a list of them. We are a little bit tidal so as you might expect in general the faster boats go down a bit and the slower boats go up a bit - we don't analyse it that way, its just how the numbers pop out. The Laser and Laser Radial have the biggest change from the RYA numbers - but are close (a bit faster) than the Great Lakes numbers. The difference between our numbers and the RYA used to be quite big, but they have got narrower since the PYS related approach has been adopted and the RYA numbers have moved closer to our locally adjusted ones (with the exception of the Laser). Mark |
Posted By: yellowwelly
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 4:20pm
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Draycote don't, despite some desire from some quarters to experiment with it. (why not?) ------------- |
Posted By: r2d2
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 4:28pm
| Rutland do |
Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 4:33pm
| Island Barn Reservoir do. Just for a few classes where we have reasonable data. The latest RYA numbers are tending to approach our numbers: the divergance is reducing. |
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 4:52pm
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Jim, if you adjust for some (where you have the evidence) but boats which were having close racing with the ones you have adjusted (maybe against the run of other results) don't have the numbers to warrent a change, what do you do? I suppose an example which might happen (just to try and make myself clear) is that if you have lots of Solos and just a couple of Lightnings, which get close results, and are close on handicap. The Solo results, though, are too good - the handicap needs a reduction to fit in with the other big fleets - say Lasers and 200's. If you leave the Lightning where it is, due to lack of numbers, suddenly you would have shifted the goalposts for 2 very close boats. Do you have a solution to this? I can see it happening in the winter meetings, where I think the Solo has gone the other way. If I arrive in the Lightning, expecting to find I have a close race with the Solos, but then find they have been moved up 20 points, but mine is still the same due to a lack of results. I'd be somewhat miffed. ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 6:05pm
Exactly what is happening, guys with older Phantoms that following the averages used to fair OK win some lose some against the Blaze & Laser, now isolated, the Blaze can still fair OK against a Laser but the hounding of the Phantom and targeting of the Laser as handicap event fodder in isolation now screws the status quo. Our club leave it as supplied by the RYA, as it is the Merlin boys often work out the results, they're hardly going to handicap themselves off the winning streak of a lifetime, so maybe I do it, I'm hardly going to handicap them just for my own selfish benefit because that's what it would look like. Club politics amongst chums just won't stand it at small clubs, so we moan. ------------- https://www.corekite.co.uk/snow-accessories-11-c.asp" rel="nofollow - Snow Equipment Deals https://www.corekite.co.uk" rel="nofollow - New Core Kite website |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 7:45pm
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Nice to see Starcross doing a comprehensive job of adjusting. It's good to see others having a go too. I guess my main reason for asking, apart from noseyness in wanting to see what boats had been adjusted, was to see if attitudes had changed. A couple of years ago there used to be quite a divide between those that liked local adjustment and those that didn't, I was wondering if the divide had altered with the advent of the new returns system............Has the RYA publicity over the last couple of years promoting the idea of local adjustment had an effect?
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Posted By: AlexM
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 8:05pm
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I enter all the data in for Leigh and Lowton, which we've been doing for two years (ish)
I think it has definitely helped that it isn't people from the club amending the numbers but the website which has the backing from the RYA. Stamp of approval Alex ------------- |
Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 10:19pm
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HISC do. Not sure how they are worked out though. |
Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 02 Sep 13 at 11:49pm
Across every class I've ever looked at the finish times in a typical race are in the order of a twenty percent spread, usually more. So if the fleets were having a close race before they will be afterwards if there's a two percent change in relative handicap. No doubt the odd place or two will swap round, but, frankly, who's to tell which way round is correct? The sailors at the front of the fleet will still be at the front, and the sailors who still have plenty of scope for improving will still be in much the same place in the fleet too. |
Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 8:26am
I think that's true, you take it as a given and get on with it.
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Posted By: jeffers
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 9:55am
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We do at Hunts for the older Merlins we have. The Phantom is now about where it needs to be although I can still see this getting faster over the next couple of years or so so we will probably track it. Not sure what our figures are from the RYA site as I have no access to it. ------------- Paul ---------------------- D-Zero GBR 74 |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 10:53am
They do a calculation all of their own compensating for the tide. I believe Lancing do an adjustment for tide as well although they only use it for certain races.....Tidal flow being a reasonably predictable factor, it makes sense to try and tackle it. Well done to them for giving it a go, not sure if they got it right though? |
Posted By: GybeFunny
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 12:28pm
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Chipstead SC make our own amendments, they are on page 30 of our programme here: http://www.chipsteadsc.org.uk/events/CSC_Programme_Mar_2013_Ed.pdf" rel="nofollow - http://www.chipsteadsc.org.uk/events/CSC_Programme_Mar_2013_Ed.pdf We are a small lake and thats why things like Graduates and Solos perform very well on our type of sailing. We follow the RYA guidance and crunch the numbers to see what the yardsticks should be and these are generally accepted, it is pretty hard to argue against the maths. However we are primarily a fleet racing club so any handicap racing tends to take less importance than the fleet racing. The best sailors are far more keen on beating another boat of their class than winning on some spreadsheet. |
Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 12:43pm
I'm not trying to compare the 20% spread, though. I'm comparing helms who are very close on ability and if sailing the same class will swap positions regularly. If that is happening within the handicap results, and one of the classes is moved reletive to the other, then the balance is destroyed, and at that point 2% is a huge amount. I suppose the answer would be to link the 2 classes on handicap, so the smaller class would change to stay with the numerically bigger one, despite not having enough ruturns of its own. But then you move away from pure numbers. I'm also still not convinced that most clubs have enough returns not to have personal handicapping coming into play with the changes. ------------- Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686 |
Posted By: tgruitt
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 1:09pm
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I see the RYA are asking for returns to be made but I don't see what information they gain by sending back the form? I sail at a club that doesn't adjust locally (although should do) and all the RYA form asks for are the number of each class and the PY (standard). How do they gain any useful data from this as it doesn't include race results? ------------- Needs to sail more... |
Posted By: marke
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 2:04pm
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Tom The MUCH preferred option is that your club submits its data into the online PYS system. If you use Sailwave, HAL, or a spreadsheet to do the handicap calculations then this is very easy to do - much easier than filling in the excel form and it gives us raw data to use. I haven't looked at the excel form this year - but last year it asked for the club to provide for each class - the number of individual competitors for that class (i.e. different helms), the number of appearances (i.e. how many races x boats), the PY used at your club, AND the calculated PY based on the elapsed time or the handicappers estimate of what the PY should be. Again if you use Sailwave, Hal, or a homegrown spreadsheet it should be easy to do (but not as easy as just submitting to the PYS in the first place) - if your results are calculated on the back of fag packet then its not so easy  The two datasets are analysed jointly and separately by the RYA. Last year for the first time the PYS data was bigger than the excel return. The long term ambition should be for the PYS to take over completely as the mechanism for recording performance which can then be used both for a club's local analysis and the national analysis. Please try to encourage whoever drew the short straw at your club to do the PY return via the PYS - give them my email if they have any questions. Mark |
Posted By: tgruitt
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 2:25pm
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OK, they use sailwave. I will get the info sent, do you just email them the sailwave docs? I don't think anyone does a return, so I might have to step up to the mark here....
------------- Needs to sail more... |
Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 3:50pm
But how is it meaningful to submit PY data for a class at a club, without relating it to all the other PY's in that club. HISC for instance will send you a calclated number of say 920 for the RS400, which sounds like it performs well. But as everything it races against is also on a reduced number, it actually tells you very little. I predict that the Merlin and RS400 will have similar changes in the spring as they did this year, because the data will be munged with the same inputs from clubs who rebase things.
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Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 4:12pm
Marke, would you say the number of clubs submitting data (in whatever form) has increased in the last couple of years? |
Posted By: marke
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 10:15pm
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OK one post for several questions. Tom - get the sailwave files and then look for the option in sailwave to submit to PYS and it does it for you. I'm not an expert on the sailwave submission as we deliver directly from our database. However there are a lot of posters on this forum that submit a lot of data via sailwave who will be able to help. RS400 - the analysis of the PY returns only uses the PY used at the club to decide which competitors should be excluded for poor performance (we are looking for competent performances for the analysis). Once that is done we are only interested in the elapsed time, no.of laps etc. for each competitor to calculate the "sailed to" PY. Look at the YR2 algorithm documentation for an explanation. Its done slightly differently from that - but essentially it is a similar scheme Transient - the amount of data submitted to PYS has increased dramatically in the last two years. I don't have the digests with me to check the growth, but it was very significant (more than double if I remember correctly). I don't think the overall number of clubs returning changed that much but was still up a bit - I don't think we expected that to increase a lot, but the more clubs that submit via PYS the better. It was very noticeable how many of the biggest and/or most active racing clubs had switched to using the PYS. Mark |
Posted By: craiggo
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 11:01pm
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Tom, you need to talk to Andy Wibroe at the RYA and get your club registered on the PYS site. They will give you a club membership number and password to access the system. You can then either add whole series by simply uploading your sailwave .blw files or in sailwave you can go through the pys upload options to do it from sailwave (you need your club membership id for this).
Top tips - 1. Make sure your class names tie up with the official PY list names! 2. If you have changed someones handicap for a particular race due to sailing a different boat for example then you need to rebuild your sailwave file to insert a seperate line entry for the boat they were actually sailing. 3. Use the rename function on the pys site to tidy up any misnamings |
Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 03 Sep 13 at 11:30pm
But how do you know what an elapsed time should be for say a PY of 1000, if you have nothing valid to reference it against? If I'm racing against Merlins with a Hayling number, how do you know what Portsmouth Number I have sailed to? I find the glossing over of the process, and the fact that it is hidden from the general competitors, only available to those with logins 'representing a club' deeply unhelpful. As someone with a numerate degree and a qualification in stats, I would point out that our sailing sec is more secretarial than actuarial, basically all this stuff is beyond them. Given the standard of the last RYA comic, with confusion between CO and CO2, there is little cause for hope when accuracy is key. |
Posted By: marke
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 1:06am
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Sorry - tried to be polite and helpful - last post here over and out If anyone has any questions and is interested in the answer just PM me. |
Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 8:25am
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There's nothing secret about any of the PY process, but as a practical point the RYA lack the staff numbers to engage in dialogues with everyone who wants to whinge about their PY No. The restriction on people 'representing' seems to be as good a way as any to give clubs support without being buried in other calls, which would mean no support for the clubs.
There are loads of broadcast public comms about how it all works. Nothing is missed out. When they co-opted me on the PY group there were no surprises. To an extent volunteers provide some extra communications, but its inevitable that sometimes they/we run out of patience. |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 9:12am
Thanks for that, sincerely appreciated. Me thinks the folk doing all the work for us at the RYA PY office are doing a great job and any further improvements in data quality/volume and final accuracy are down to the rest of us i.e. sailors, class assocs and clubs. |
Posted By: RS400atC
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 9:38am
Please provide links to the algorithms, and worked examples of how this years numbers were generated. |
Posted By: yellowwelly
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 9:51am
It would seem a feeling shared by some of the 'customers' too. ------------- |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 12:22pm
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every sector has it's fair share of awkward customers. |
Posted By: yellowwelly
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 1:41pm
At the end of the day a West End smash is always going to be better than a local am-dram production from the W.I in the church hall..... the problems occur when the W.I. gets a bad review or someone expects too much from it, then toys get thrown from prams and hissy fits start. It's best just to accept it for what it is, hardly perfect, but there are worse ways to spend your leisure time. ------------- |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 2:04pm
A fair point well made. But if we consider the issue to be one of customer/supplier then this analogy springs to mind: A bloke wants to buy a tailor made suit but considers it unreasonable or can't be arsed to be measured. As Mark said the number of clubs sending in returns has hardly increased. |
Posted By: yellowwelly
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 2:18pm
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Yep- it's far less hassle to go into the department store and pick up small, medium or large. A tailor made suit doesn't make you a more productive employee and in some circumstances, can make you look a bit of tit....  ------------- |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 3:27pm
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Someone had better tell him then.
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Posted By: jeffers
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 3:46pm
Well volunteered ------------- Paul ---------------------- D-Zero GBR 74 |
Posted By: transient
Date Posted: 04 Sep 13 at 4:11pm
I never go to Brighton, best find someone who does
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