Grafham D-Zero Demo Day

Nobody should EVER buy a boat based on current handicap .... why ?  1) It can be so wrong of course  2) it will probably then change in time anyway

You should only ever buy any boat becuase you actually like sailing it.... and if you don't really like sailing it ... ie "it must float your personal boat" then stand aside and save yourself a lot or money.  Gamble on a 'poachers handicap' lasting at your peril ...

There seems to be a hell of a lot of 'speed speculation' going on here without much 'on water' objective testing (ie real races !)....    Get a life or something there, or hydrofoils, a board or a cat.  Dinghies of this type can never be properly 'quick' - but that should not be the point.  'Nice' quite possibly on occasion if you are lucky but properly 'quick' is marketing press release copy stuff really......  It is all only relative in the end.

Sail your choice, whatever that may be, because you really really like it - and not for any other reason.  

Mike L.

The 'Great Lakes' type approach is where handicapping is heading and its influence has quite possibly already seen the core PN model modified at the margins - for example in 'faster' adjustments.  I think it very likely that its impact will continue to grow .... the 'official' system now  seems to be not 'leading' but 'following'.   Club results led databases are big ... but are they now producing what is really assumed or wanted ?

The 'formal' PN system still does not attempt to specifically weight PN numbers towards the potential of the craft.  It 'proudly' (naively ?) measures all races it can get its hands on from the clubs and simply in effect averages them.  Want a 'favorable' handicap ?  Buy into a class with lots and lots of cheap old boats that are clearly not as quick as they were when new and buy yourself  a new one of them with nice crisp sails etc ....    Any 'Fast' results are then heavily diluted by the 7/8ths of the class iceberg... that has its natural stomping ground around the back of many a local club handicap fleet and amongst locals who a happy with things the way they are and rarely travel to 'away' events etc...  Often sailed with that 10 year old main and by some who think 'maintenance' is limited to the annual removal of undergrowth sprouting up around the poor old hull.  Simple really ...

New classes are therefore a tough one for that system .... and yes I do know that.  I and the others don't race Icon for example because the experimental number is easy. 

The crude portsmouth approach constantly conspires to throw us back into the middle of any handcap fleet of course.  (premise = average boat example with average crew ability) Cynically we would need to encourage a lot of 'slow' results with perhaps with a goodly proportion of dinghy novices driving old boats around if we wanted the same 'dilution' effect that some classes naturally enjoy.  

The GL approach is very far from perfect BUT its declared aims are based on the assumption that the front of that fleet made up of all classes are competitive front quartile examples sailed by fully competive crfews.  Less dilution occurs as poor examples are proportionally fewer ...   They seek to handicap all based much more on boat potential.  Surely this is what many assume and want anyway from the PN system ?  

But a tough number is not why I or anyone else should race Icons or whatever in handicap....  Early adopters can be quite skilled in my experience and of course all the kit is nice and new.   Hence why GL should be a better approach for new classes.  It already assumes the boats are competitive for a start and the events do attract the capable (netting out much of that 'crew factor' stuff.)   ... Much less of an institutionalised, even if unintended, bias there.

If you want a GL number .. then pitch up at the events.  Many, perhaps a majority already, of the major handicap events are already using the GL numbers.  In the meantime just enjoy your choice, new or old ... but if 'new' and you want to race in handicap then like us you will have to accept a period of perhaps punitive handicaps under any reasonable system. 

Surely you would sail / race any boat primarily because you enjoy it ? 

Mike L.

PS - As an aside - my own club handicappers are not usually well known for offering favorable numbers to anyone, including myself.  However even they, allow Icon to continue to race at 990 rather than the '969' of the purist RYA approach.  But then they do have a good grasp of that systems strengths and weaknesses maybe and despite the fact that Burghfields own Icon results last year made up a high proportion of the return that produced '969' once in the RYA's hands !     
  

 

Oh no, does that mean that iGRF won't be coming to Thornbury SC Regatta? I was hoping he'd be able to show me how to sail in proper tide!

Well, given the poor weather last time and the huge amount of interest stirred up by three of us at GWSC placing orders, we've got a return of the lovely D Zero to Grafham!

http://www.grafham.org/wp-content/uploads/_pdfs/D-zero-club-promo.pdf

Can I come look at my boat Rodney?