Who's been upsetting GWSC

[Steve (Guest)]

At the club on Sunday we were discussing who was doing the Grafham GP, Bloody Mary, Steve Nicholson etc and someone mentioned that the N12s had a special reduced handicap for the
Grafham GP of 1065. I thought this was a wind up, but it appears to be official.
At the same time Lasers have been given 1118 (yes Laser, not Laser radial) which would make them slower than an Enterprise, except they have given the Ent a 15 increase to 1130.
Laser 2000, which a couple of years ago had a lower handicap than a 12, has a GWSC h'cap of 1100, 35 higher than the 12.
Are we really 8 points quicker than the Lark?
Anyone going?

Regards,

Steve
N3531

[Red Hot Pudding]

I was planning on going, although in my Crusader, I've got no chance of a decent result. It'll blow the cobwebs out though!
Ian 3316

[johnk]

See Y & Y last month. The Sailjuice events are using a yardtick based on a "Class Champion" assessment on open inland water. The normal PY is supposed to be based on fleet average performance on all waters.

[Antony (Guest)]

Steve,
1065 sounds about right to me, and yes you are faster than a Lark in this context (ie more often than not).  At RHYC we have the Design 8 sailing on 1078 and the DB boats on 1058, on this basis the DCBs should probably be below 1050.  I have to say that i think that the RHYC handicaps are pretty harsh, except that it leaves us almost level rating the lasers in our Design 8 which is fair enough.  To me that last sentance highlights that the Laser had a pretty awful handicap, and it is good to see that in the past few years there is more effort to improve it relative to other classes.
I have no idea what the RHYC handicaps will be on Boxing Day, i suspect that the DCBs will sail on 1058 and that one of them will win!!
What GWSC is trying to do is commendable, using the PY as a basis for them to make adjustments to.
Antony

[Max McCarthy]

At Bartley sailing club the OD of the day has to accomidate what they think my handicap is within that space of time as I have got a skol moth (see cvrda) these have been logged and eventually I will be given a set handicap. They have also changed a few things for other boats e.g. Lowrider moth is 980 and they have this for any design after 1990, it's all very good that they adapt handicaps and in my view it will help the scheme get better and get rid of its worse points,
Max

[Steve (Guest)]

I wasn't aware of the Sailjuice Class Champion yardstick. I had a quick search online, but it semed to point me to subscriber only articles. I would agree that assessing a boat based on how fast it can be sailed is the correct way to go rather than taking the average for all participants in the class as the latter would depend on how slowly the slower sailors were able to sail their boats.

At Hykeham SC we operate 2 handicaping systems, the Portsmouth yardstick (PY) and a Personal Handicap (PH), and most handicap events and series we run have results for both PY and PH. The PH is for an individual sailing a specific class, so an individual who sails a number of different classes will have a number of different PHs. The PH is added to the PY before being used in the usual correction calculation and so ought to be transferable for an individual between classes. If there is a difference in the PH for an individual regularly sailing 2 or more classes it could be due to a number of factors such as an individual not being suited as well to one class as they are to another, the quality of boat and sails not being comparable and the PY of the 2 classes not being equally fair.

Take my PHs as an example, which in the N12 is currently -45 (it has been lower) and in the Laser is -13 (it also has been lower). Those figures on their own would suggest that the N12 handicap should be 32 lower than a Laser. Howerver, when we consider that the N12 I sail is a state of the art latest design, whereas the Laser is a beaten up example 30 years old, I like to think I sail the N12 close to it's potential, but admit I am not ideally suited to the Laser and in a competetive Laser fleet I would be well off the pace, so a significant amount of the 32 is the quality of equipment and the way it's being sailed and much less due to the PY of the Laser being too low.
I admit that a lower handicap for the N12 than a Laser could be justified, but not 30, maybe 10 or so and certainly not the 53 given by Sailjuice Class champion assessment. All I can think is that the Laser Class Champion had a particularly bad day when Sailjuice assessed him.

Regards,

Steve
N3531
L102739

[Roly Mo]

We will be there, though Dan and I will be sailing the 'big boat' rather than the 12.  The handicapping issues have caused me interest too!
RM

[Antony (Guest)]

Steve,
Nice work at Grafham.  Any thoughts on the handicap?!?
More generally, are there any thoughts on how to handicap modern 12s against each other within a wider club handicap fleeet?  What PY adjustment should a club make between a classic DB boat and one with wings (or a DCB?).  Has anybody had any success getting a club to adopt a further PY for their mixed fleet of 12s?  I know that Salcombe used to do good work on this but it looks like all the DB boats are on 1087 there from their most recent results.  It does not look as if Burghfield do anything apart from their personal handicap system and a 40 pt adjustment for being single-handed.
Antony 

[steve (Guest)]

Anthony,
Thanks. It was a very enjoyable sail and I was quite surprised that the 12 does seem to have made significant speed increases over the past few years. However you never really know the quality of the mixed fleet you are racing agaiinst. Obviously from the result it would appear that 1065 can't be too far off for a DCB. I was going to say that maybe there should be a bigger differential than 8 between the N12 and the RS200, but I just looked up the RS200 results for Ben Saxton who beat us and it looks like he's pretty much the top RS200 sailor over the past few years, so we can assume he was probably sailing close to it's full potential. Considering also that we broke the lowers after lap 1 of race 1 (I've been meaning to put wire on there in place of the rope since I first rigged up the boat) and were continually doing battle with the mid fleet Flying 15s maybe your suggestion of 1050 isn't too far off on open water in those conditions.

I did predict that that a Laser would win the singlehanders off 1118, which turned out to be correct and there were a few others near the front as well. I still think 1118 for the Laser is a bit on the generous side.

Regards,

Steve
N3531

[broz (Guest)]

Interesting about the Laser, I remember the day when a lot of World and National Champs. sailed Laser's in their home clubs because the could not win in their Champion ship boat.
Grad's, Ent's, Fireballs.Merlins,Solos all laidlow by the Laser.