lost classes and handicap numbers - Zenith

[JimC]

it could be argued that a new example benefits perhaps unfairly from its PY being based upon boats in a poorer condition.

Half the trouble is that the number one factor by a country mile is the condition of the sails. I'm sure it makes more difference to boat speed than all the other variables put together, and anyone can buy a new set of rags for any boat at any time...

IMHO its entirely right and proper that we should give a generous allowance to those souls who take the trouble and accept the inconvenience of coming out with a vintage set of cotton sails, and if I were to bring the Cherub out with a carbon stick and a set of mylar rags I'd expect a handicap hit, but we are a *racing* dinghy association: I'm not sure we should be in the game of encouraging people to look out for the rattiest old dust sheets they can find in the hope of a handicap advantage...
To me, provided new sails are as far as possible contemporary in design with the boat, they shouldn't attract a handicap penalty. Anyway, that's my philosophy, which is why Queenie's new jib was in white cloth, not mylar, and her new kite was to an old design. Your mileage may vary!

[Rupert]

Interesting that 3 of the 4 "gold standard" classes Jim mentions are ones where I would say a modern version would wipe the floor with a 1960's version...
As for new sails, we have never penalized boats for having new rags, unless they are made from stuff that wasn't around in the era of the boat. What we have done, and will continue to do, is give points to boats using sails that date back to the period of the boat. So a Firefly using 1960's Ratsey sails on a Reynolds mast will get a time advantage over a Firefly using a silver Proctor mast and Hyde sails, but because, as Jim shows, the handicaps have remained stable despite the changes, we give the points rather than take them away. This all has nothing to do with the original question, of course, and has been discussed many times before. As yardsticks are based on performance and not measurement, and a fairly limited amount of performance data at that, I'm not sure that the figures given are infact any more accurate than a stab in the dark. I would certainly bet on my hunch of 1073 being closer to accurate for good competition in the boat than the mathematical 1044.
PS - looking at the figures again, no wonder I have to work bloody hard in Saskia at cvrda events - the handicap is terrible!

[JimC]

Interesting that 3 of the 4 "gold standard" classes Jim mentions are ones where I would say a modern version would wipe the floor with a 1960's version...

I dunno. For those boats and weights of boat plywood is a really good boat building material. I really doubt anything modern has much of an advantage of a wood boat built to the standard of the top wooden boat builders of that era with the generally superior timber they had available to them. Of course a boat built to those standards would cost about £20,000 today, but hey, you can't have everything...

On the other hand I bet stability of number doesn't have a lot to do with whether the boats are faster and slower than they used to be... the PY is after all a relative figure, and those classes have not changed hugely in popularity or had major changes in specification, so would always have been key classes to base changes in your club return around. I would say, looking at the numbers, that as classes die off the handicap tends to get a bit more favourable, which probably reflects hot shots not choosing to sail in them, and a bit of personal handicapping creeping into the numbers...

In any case I reckon people wildly overrate the importance in boat speed in handicap racing... In a class championships with 50 boats on the line then 1% extra speed gets you in clear air and the rest in dirty air pretty soon after the start, and from there on it gets worse, but in a handicap race its much more about how fast you sail the whole race, not how quickly you can pick up a little lead...

[azimuth]

Neil and Brookesy - Many thanks for your advice, Roadford sounds ideal so the Zenith will be arriving there in April!

Look forward to meeting you both then.


Best wishes,

Keith

[neil]

Keith

that's great news. You can't miss us - just look for Finn sailors - usually at the snack van with burger in hand

Neil