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JimC
Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6649 |
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Topic: Boat Performance Index Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 9:55am |
It may seem bizarre but it's very practical. The big challenge with any kind of handicap system is that the variation of performance between crews is far greater than the variation between boats. So trying to produce a handicap that reflects only the difference between boats is very difficult. However with personal handicapping you don't have that concern, you just bung everything together and both crew and boat speed variation are included in the number. But a confusion with personal handicapping is that there are several really quite different ways it can be organised. More later. |
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JimC
Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6649 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 10:40am |
Different types of Personal Handicapping
Its all personal handicaps I hear you say. Well, no, IMNSHO there are quite a number of ways handicaps individual to boats/crews can be organised, and its all about who you want to win. Normal class racing is really best crew in best (prepared) boat wins. The boats are rarely truly identical, preparation will vary in details, if only in how polished the hull and foils or how new the sails are. With conventional PY handicap racing its really best crew in best *and most suitable* boat, there being another variation which is boat best suited to the conditions, including getting lucky with wind variations. So personal handicap types. At my club we calculate past performance at the beginning of the season and lock those numbers for the season, and dual score races. So that's most improved boat/crew combination wins. This works very well in dual scoring with best boat/crew wins and is perfectly logical for series racing. Other clubs and systems, NHC for instance, recalculate handicaps after every race. What this actually gives you is Best performance on the day wins. To me this is best suited to individual prizes for each race. To take it to extremes, if you recalculated personal handicaps after every race and rescored the series you'd end up with everyone tieing! There are others. I know of one club where their system is used for pursuit races, and the aim seems to be that the results remain in the "best boat wins" order, but the distance between boats is very much reduced so that they all finish on the same leg, and everyone gets to the dinner table at the same time. It also adds a certain amount of "outstanding performance on the day". Philosophically it seems odd to have a personal handicapping system that produces much the same result as if you didn't have one, but in practical and social terms its a roaring success, and who can argue with that? There are lots of other ways you could organise racing. How about, for example, a series in which the boats were all identical, all control lines were locked off, and sailors swapped boats between races so that any element of boat tuning was removed and it was purely wind and water? |
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Woodburner
Far too distracted from work Joined: 13 Mar 15 Location: Folkestone Kent Online Status: Offline Posts: 332 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 11:17am |
Personally I'd like the idea of sailing to a handicap Golf Style, I could reconcile with that, assuming of course the boat scratch handicap was there or thereabout.
Taking my lake experiences they gifted me 28pts over the EPS handicap and it produced occasional winning results, so I could argue I can sail to +28, if I then applied that to other results I've had say with the Alto I'm sure I'd also have occasional glory, so my work would be to reduce it so I became a 'scratch' sailor which would be a goal worth pursuing, if you're me. But in order for even that system to function there needs to be a pretty set in stone boat performance index which brings us back to the original title, so boats need to have a 'Scratch' handicap drawn from their very best performance in optimal conditions, then at least those of us who need to measure our true ability can at least see the progress we're making. At the moment all the system encourages is good humoured tolerance by some or bandit pot hunting by others, when really it could be so much more.
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JimC
Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6649 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 11:47am |
Things is though, if you're genuinely sailing to a golf handicap for best performance on the day then a scratch handicap is quite unnecessary.
You time all the sailors every week, and convert their times to a standard percentage. It might be percentage of the winning boats time, it might be percentage of the mid fleet, it doesn't matter much. Then you average all these and it spits out a percentage for each sailor. So on a typical day Jane averages 110% and Bill averages 160%. Some of that will be difference in boat, and some of that difference in sailor, but you *don't care* which is which. It doesn't even matter that Peter has old tarpaulins for sails, and Sarah brand new 3DL ones, it all gets run in together. You use those percentages to calculate corrected times for next week's race, and if Bill comes out ahead of Jane, Peter and Sarah he gets the bottle of wine... Edited by JimC - 26 Mar 15 at 11:49am |
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turnturtle
Really should get out more Joined: 05 Dec 14 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2538 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 12:05pm |
i know forum persona dictates some cynical throwaway comment here, but there are worse things than trying something a bit different to see whether folks like it or not.
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JimC
Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6649 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 12:06pm |
And I'm starting to wonder whether, in these days when people find it more and more difficult to get a whole series together, if a golf handicap and a prize for the winner each week does make some kind of sense at club level. You could still have the standard series run on PY alongside it.
Edited by JimC - 26 Mar 15 at 12:09pm |
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turnturtle
Really should get out more Joined: 05 Dec 14 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2538 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 12:32pm |
I think that's probably true for a lot of folks, (having looked forward to our Wednesday series for a while now, my diary means I can only make 1 out of the first 4 for definite ) But then there's also a hardcore who value the series results.... difficult to appeal to everyone.
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Do Different
Really should get out more Joined: 26 Jan 12 Location: North Online Status: Offline Posts: 1312 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 12:35pm |
If looking for an alternative system this summary from JimC makes as much sense as any.
(All I see in Woodbothers BPI is more of the same but with the words in different order) It removes all arguments about ratings, bandits and accounts for big spenders and merry bodgers. |
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JimC
Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6649 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 1:04pm |
It does add a whole new set of arguments about sandbagging, major boat upgrades and the like. Nothing's perfect in this world. It only works perfectly if no-one changes or upgrades boats.
Edited by JimC - 26 Mar 15 at 1:15pm |
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Do Different
Really should get out more Joined: 26 Jan 12 Location: North Online Status: Offline Posts: 1312 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 26 Mar 15 at 1:25pm |
Well yes but as an alternative to PY racing when there is not enough for Class racing it could be a good fit, especially for engaging a few more outliers with Club racing.
Nothing is perfect as you say, even class racing in some cases more than others you could argue can be an arms race. Surely you look at different system in relation to their potential customers and the goals of said customers. Any system can be abused little or much but at the end of the day everybody knows that "cheaters only cheat themselves" out of the respect of their peers. |
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