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AlexM 
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 Posted: 30 Aug 12 at 3:53pm |
L&LSC numbers
About to amend the numbers for the next series
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Oli
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Posted: 14 Jul 12 at 3:35pm |
update of bsc numbers 
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AlexM
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Posted: 27 Apr 12 at 5:39pm |
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Is it possible to view a full summary table of the results? I would like to check that all the classes have the same name and are pulling though correctly i.e. NATIONAL 12* and 12*
Alex
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Oli
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Posted: 03 Apr 12 at 12:46pm |
Originally posted by Medway Maniac
You really do risk opening a can of worms if you apply the suggested PY's. When the 'sanctity' (so far as the average club member is concerned, I'm afraid) of the official figures is broken, it becomes open house for moaning about PY's, people get demotivated and may turn out less often.But at least we will be using numbers derived from the guys that run the system and not someones idea of a good number. As for demotivating i see it quite differently (maybe its my glass half full attitude to sailing), but if your number drops then you have done well therefore becoming more of a challenge for you and again if you win then youve done even better (winning isnt everything it is handicap racing after all) and if your number drops thats a huge incentive to up your game and the when you do you will win therefore re-inforcing a positive incentive for you to race.
Unless you have a lot (dozen or so) of boats from a given class there's no question that a personal handicap element remains, which is demotivating for the sailors in the class being changed. With just a few boats involved, if they sail a blinding series of races, they know their reward will be a hit to their handicap - great! And it's not as if it's like a golf handicap where you can wear it as a badge of your ability. The feeling is especially bad when clubmates tell them that it wasn't their blinding tactics but the current PY that gave them the victory. Not a nice atmosphere for a club to have. We currently have that very situation because of the static pys, so after all these years of them being static surely its time for a change, even if its proven to be the wrong thing only time will tell and if you have the minerals to get of your ass and do something about it. Ive grown tired of people complaining about their current py (both too low and too high, amazing i know but they do!), we have a system that shows promise to even the playing field when it comes to bandits so lets try it.
We've discussed applying the suggested PY's to all boats at WSC a few times now, but each time have concluded that we'd do more harm to the plausibility of the results for the average member than good. Each week, only one person would be happy - the winner - while the rest moaned about PY's. Again most of our members are happy to beat their fellow class member and anything above that is a bonus, now some people are in a class of one and yes it would become a personal handicap, but even at 0.3cf you have to do about 300 races before it qualifies for change and so they will be for the foreseable future still race off the natioanl number (wheres the issue?)
The average member prefers to use the 'sanctified' (even if they aren't) PY's on the official list and just take the rough with the smooth. The value of the website so far as we are concerned - and it's a great value - is the ability to feed back our results regularly so that the 'sanctified' figures are brought quickly up to date. We've already seen the benefit with the Phantom, the major and only real source of complaints before all this started. they may prefer the 'sanctified' number but thats becasue they havent had a choice before, at least here are two parties in the race now.
We also use the suggested PY's when the class has no official number, such as the V3000, 59er with trapeze, and Alto. As one of the four V3k owners, I see the necessity (as asst sailing sec I voted in favour), but still find the personal handicap aspect demotivating. For other reasons, I hopped back in an L3k for the past two seasons, and have to say it was nice to be out of the PY crossfire; back in the V now though - more fun till we get ashore... weve talked about doing some races (mostly for fun) off a personal handicap, to test the water as it were, it like any py system will have pitfalls so again its something that can be looked at for the future. |
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Posted: 03 Apr 12 at 11:11am |
Originally posted by Medway Maniac
The average member prefers to use the 'sanctified' (even if they aren't) PY's on the official list and just take the rough with the smooth. The value of the website so far as we are concerned - and it's a great value - is the ability to feed back our results regularly so that the 'sanctified' figures are brought quickly up to date. We've already seen the benefit with the Phantom, the major and only real source of complaints before all this started.
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I think that sums it up for me........If the RYA could carve the PY list in stone and set light to someones bush most sailors would be in heaven 
But there is a large minority who don't take things as gospel, who want things to be demonstrably fairer for their water. Those who don't tug their forelock or cross themselves at the mention of the RYA.
The debate between the two camps will be endless. A bit like left and right wing politics I'm afraid, reason has nothing to do with it.
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Medway Maniac
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Posted: 03 Apr 12 at 10:49am |
You really do risk opening a can of worms if you apply the suggested PY's. When the 'sanctity' (so far as the average club member is concerned, I'm afraid) of the official figures is broken, it becomes open house for moaning about PY's, people get demotivated and may turn out less often.
Unless you have a lot (dozen or so) of boats from a given class there's no question that a personal handicap element remains, which is demotivating for the sailors in the class being changed. With just a few boats involved, if they sail a blinding series of races, they know their reward will be a hit to their handicap - great! And it's not as if it's like a golf handicap where you can wear it as a badge of your ability. The feeling is especially bad when clubmates tell them that it wasn't their blinding tactics but the current PY that gave them the victory. Not a nice atmosphere for a club to have.
We've discussed applying the suggested PY's to all boats at WSC a few times now, but each time have concluded that we'd do more harm to the plausibility of the results for the average member than good. Each week, only one person would be happy - the winner - while the rest moaned about PY's.
The average member prefers to use the 'sanctified' (even if they aren't) PY's on the official list and just take the rough with the smooth. The value of the website so far as we are concerned - and it's a great value - is the ability to feed back our results regularly so that the 'sanctified' figures are brought quickly up to date. We've already seen the benefit with the Phantom, the major and only real source of complaints before all this started.
We also use the suggested PY's when the class has no official number, such as the V3000, 59er with trapeze, and Alto. As one of the four V3k owners, I see the necessity (as asst sailing sec I voted in favour), but still find the personal handicap aspect demotivating. For other reasons, I hopped back in an L3k for the past two seasons, and have to say it was nice to be out of the PY crossfire; back in the V now though - more fun till we get ashore...
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Oli
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Posted: 03 Apr 12 at 8:56am |
Originally posted by sargesail
Originally posted by slop_idol
We have discussed changing at 0.3cf due to it being a good amount of data for the sample size. When we can pool like venues in to the system, and the cf goes up we will use a higher cf before we change, but as it is the boats are currently performing to these numbers and as such should be changed. Now if it turns out to be too harsh the data will go the other way and we will change it again. Its great that the system now reflects this, but I think that having a pre defined low medium and high value against the cf number to be like the old style of defining the yardsticks with primary secondary numbers etc which will scare people off changing numbers.
Yes - but on the other hand it would be useful to ask for those options, to see how they varied at different cfs. we will only move boats above 0.3cf at the begininng of a new series, that when you look at the data is only two boats currently as the others dont have eneough data yet, and these will move around a fair bit over the season looking at how they have moved in the last few races, the point is we are trying to get to a balance where we may not have to move a boat as it may only move 2py points either side of its base py.
As for the blaze moving as much as it does, I have to say that it is probably along with the fireball the most suited boat to our stretch of water, therefore it will perform above its percieved performance range for most clubs. There hasn't been a lot of all in races at the club where either a blaze or fireball hasn't won or dominated as fleet the results in the last few years, the Musto is another one that when conditions suit can't be touched on handicap, so every dog does have its day I guess.
And this is where I struggle with using cfs as low as 0.3. If the Blaze is 50 odd PY points better then you ought to see a similar change in the 300. Now I'll accept that there aren't enough races yet for the 300, but you are, of course, changing the Blaze relative to everything else - if that's actually because you're water suits the Blaze then by not changing similar boats you are creating an anomalous situation. How much is Crew Skill Factor too. the blazes more often than not beat the 300 around the course so the 300 may not change relative to the blazes performance. my understanding of the system is that we no longer use benchmark boats to calculate other boats py and as such the handicap given to your class is the one that you as a class have sailed to, if you want to achieve a more favourable handicap, slow down and fudge the results, but you are only cheating yourselves if you do this. We are also trying to move away from people having a best guess at a particular number as this will and does cause more arguments. we have been given a great oportunity to you a mathematical system that uses our performances to attain our py, so why whouldnt we?As it stands I think this new system is much better and with perhaps a few minor tweaks and the proposed planned additions it maybe as perfect as handicapping can possibly get. The trick is not to be scared to change numbers if it looks like they need changing, just make sure everyone knows how you plan to implement changes and that the rules used to apply them are the same for all classes.
Yes I'm all for experiment, as long as there's a control, and the experimenters understand what they're doing. The irony in all of the PY work is that you could make statistically perfect fair racing and still annoy just about everyone! absolutely you can annoy everyone, and you could with the old system by not changing so you'll never win over 100% of the people, but not to change because the minority may not agree with you at first is just stupid and we are trying to encourage people to attend. The majority of people i have spoken to understand what we are trying to achieve and agree to it, yes some move more than others but again it is based on their perfomances so should see it as an incentive to sail improve their sailing (this is true if your handicap moves up or down). |
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sargesail
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Posted: 02 Apr 12 at 8:28pm |
Originally posted by slop_idol
We have discussed changing at 0.3cf due to it being a good amount of data for the sample size. When we can pool like venues in to the system, and the cf goes up we will use a higher cf before we change, but as it is the boats are currently performing to these numbers and as such should be changed. Now if it turns out to be too harsh the data will go the other way and we will change it again. Its great that the system now reflects this, but I think that having a pre defined low medium and high value against the cf number to be like the old style of defining the yardsticks with primary secondary numbers etc which will scare people off changing numbers.
Yes - but on the other hand it would be useful to ask for those options, to see how they varied at different cfs.
As for the blaze moving as much as it does, I have to say that it is probably along with the fireball the most suited boat to our stretch of water, therefore it will perform above its percieved performance range for most clubs. There hasn't been a lot of all in races at the club where either a blaze or fireball hasn't won or dominated as fleet the results in the last few years, the Musto is another one that when conditions suit can't be touched on handicap, so every dog does have its day I guess.
And this is where I struggle with using cfs as low as 0.3. If the Blaze is 50 odd PY points better then you ought to see a similar change in the 300. Now I'll accept that there aren't enough races yet for the 300, but you are, of course, changing the Blaze relative to everything else - if that's actually because you're water suits the Blaze then by not changing similar boats you are creating an anomalous situation. How much is Crew Skill Factor too.
As it stands I think this new system is much better and with perhaps a few minor tweaks and the proposed planned additions it maybe as perfect as handicapping can possibly get. The trick is not to be scared to change numbers if it looks like they need changing, just make sure everyone knows how you plan to implement changes and that the rules used to apply them are the same for all classes.
Yes I'm all for experiment, as long as there's a control, and the experimenters understand what they're doing. The irony in all of the PY work is that you could make statistically perfect fair racing and still annoy just about everyone! |
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chrisg
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Posted: 30 Mar 12 at 11:23pm |
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Ahh yes, hope you can find them. It is worth opening the file and just ahving a quick glance down the list of classes to check youve called them all the same thing as its easy to lose some. You need 9 data points I think it is before boats appear in the report page so if you accidentally misname one, it may never appear...
Chris
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craiggo
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Posted: 30 Mar 12 at 10:33pm |
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Thanks Chris,
The issue is trying to find all the old .blw files and then making sure that the boats spelling are consistent in all series.
I'll give it a go and let you know if I come across any issues.
Paul
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