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MY SAY This area will provide ideas aimed at stimulating discussion on sailing related topics, particularly on race management. We hope to provide a new article every month or so . These articles will be provided by individuals and the article will reflect the opinions of the writer and not necessarily those of TopYacht (Software), hence the title "My Say". July 2002: The quarterly newsletter contains a number of issues re Sailing Instructions and so is reproduced below. May 2002: As more and more Keel clubs around Australia are now using TopYacht, I believe it is time to start providing a "handicap cross reference" facility. We will be contacting clubs and asking for some relevant data in a first attempt to allow sensible comparison of Measured Performance Handicaps across Australia. This will then allow a competitor to compete elsewhere in Australia on a sensible starting HC. All ideas welcomed. TopYacht continues to grow we are getting more and more input from keel boat clubs on how they "do handicapping". This led us to carry out a major review of Measured Performance Handicapping methods. In this study a 15 race Series, from a large Victorian keel boat club, was re-processed under some 50 different handicap set ups. The results of these test are now available for discussion and hopefully for some feedback for the general sailing community. The report is Handicap Systems Compared.. [Updated 010528.] May 2001: As TopYacht continues to grow we are getting more and more input from keel boat clubs on how they "do handicapping". This led us to carry out a major review of Measured Performance Handicapping methods. In this study a 15 race Series, from a large Victorian keel boat club, was re-processed under some 50 different handicap set ups. The results of these test are now available for discussion and hopefully for some feedback for the general sailing community. The report is Handicap Systems Compared.. [Updated 010528.] Greetings fellow sail boat race scorers / handicappers. February 2001: TopYacht has been heavily used for a large number of National and State events over January 2001. It was pleasing to find that there were very few requests for assistance. But yet again there were instances where race scorers were being blamed for the late delivery of sensible results. My repeated experience is that the races scorer is rather unlikely to be the source of the problem. All clubs have a slightly different approach to getting out fast accurate results at a Regatta. Over this January we have again witnessed a variety of these approaches. These suggestions are available for your use / comment as Getting Fast Accurate Results at a Regatta.
Decmeber 2000: As we approach the time of year where many sailors in the southern hemisphere are soon to be involved in National championships I urge all who visit this page to re read the article scoring of sub groups with in a regatta. Finding a Champion of Champions (December 2000) A question that has now raised its head on several occasions is how to establish a "Champion of Champions" when various sailors are sailing in different boats in different fleets and are doing a different number of races around different courses. This circumstance can arise in a dinghy Regatta where there are different course for different classes. Below is an approach. Any and all feedback on this topic would be most welcomed. Please send any comments to rod@tyacht.com . It is clearly harder to win a sailing race in 20 boats than it is
to win in a fleet of 10 boats provided that the skill levels in the fleets both follow a
normal distribution. Any comments / ideas on this issue are welcomed. Rod McCubbin December 2000. The previous topic was......... HANDICAPPING METHODS!! As I have talked with handicappers across Australia and in countries overseas it becomes obvious that there are many different handicapping systems. It is also obvious that many sailors have never considered that there might exist alternate handicapping systems that are used elsewhere. Some are little better than the throw of a dice, others take into account very little data, others try to provide handicaps just based on each competitors relative position and ignore the time spacing between the competitors. Still others provide a time handicap of "X" seconds but do not specify that such a handicap is related to a specific course size or time of race. For example a "handicap" of 20 seconds may be perfect for two laps of a 2 mile course, but it becomes almost meaningless if the course is instead just one lap of that course. If a time is used as a handicap then that must be referenced either to a distance or to an other time. The attached paper is the result of 4 seasons of working with handicappers and in particular, analysing Measured Performance Handicaps for 2 to 4 hour duration Keel boat races. This discussion paper is in the form of an Adobe Acrobat (version 3/4) file. It can be viewed or download by clicking on the following Measured Performance Handicapping.
The previous topic was......... "Multihull Correction Factor" . This is a simple method for comparing monohulls and catamarans in a combined race. The basic version of the MCF is currently built into TopYacht. This will be upgraded along the lines of the discussion below for Version 4 due for release in the 3 quarter 2000. This discussion paper is in the form of an Adobe Acrobat (version 3/4) file. It can be viewed or download by clicking on the following.. Multihull Correction Factor.
The previous topic was......... Of all the many Email questions we receive one of the most frequently asked is how to .... Produce sensible Personal / Performance Handicap results at the local Dinghy Club. TopYacht Dinghy provides a flexible performance handicapping module. But to get best effect from it, it is important that you understand a bit about handicapping.
Issue: generating sensible BCHs. After each race TopYacht calculates a Back Calculated Handicap (BCH) / performance factor for each competitor. This is a scale factor that each competitor needed to have his/her elapsed time multiplied by to obtain the same HCC Time as all other competitors. This figure is simply obtained by dividing each competitors elapsed time by a reference time. This reference time is either the average elapsed time of a specified percentage/section of the competitors or to the average HCC Time of a specified percentage/section of competitors. Mathematically this is BCH = ET/RefTime. TopYacht does this 3 times for each race. Once when comparing the competitors within their Class, once in their Division and also within the Fleet (see later). If you use the Elapsed Time alterative then it will (mathematically) provide one or more competitors a BCH of 1.000 or very close. This will occur even if the only 3 competitors that sailed today normally have a handicap of say 0.700!! Is this a problem you may ask??? A new handicap is generated for each competitor after each race. This new HC is the running average of the last say 4 BCHs for that competitor. So if the last BCH was suddenly very high compared with that competitor’s normal HC then the new HC will also be pushed up unrealistically. Not desirable! Note: this effect only occurs when there are small numbers of competitors in a particular race. In a large fleet or in fleets where most of the competitors sail most races (e.g. a Regatta) then this is not a problem. The alternate RefTime is to use the average HCC Time of a specified section of the competitors. Under this scheme one or more competitors near the middle of the fleet will have a BCH that is almost identical to his/her current handicap. This is obviously a more desirable outcome than the previous alternative. BUT!!! Using elapsed times for reference forces the BCH to centre around 1.00 so the system self stabilises whereas using HCC Time for reference can easily lead to handicap "creep" where the whole fleet’s HCs slowly move either up or down after a number of races. This must be checked regularly and adjusted appropriately when needed Further: as the elapsed time system is self centring it will provide BCHs that are only relevant to that particular group of competitors and the HCs so generated have little meaning in other fleets/Series. Consequently carrying HCs forward form one Series to the next does not work well unless it is primarily the same group of competitors in both Series. Whereas, if you use the HCC Time referenced system AND you are prepared to take educated guesses as to what HC to give each new competitor to a Series, then this system is a little more useful when it comes to carrying HCs into a new Series with a different mix of competitors.
Issue: poor handicaps when few sailors sail most weeks. As mentioned in the introduction performance handicapping is a system based on measuring the relative performance of the competitors. If there is a very different mix of competitorsfrom one race to the next, to the next..... then it is very difficult to get meaningful comparisons between the various competitors. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be easily done to overcome this problem by the maths in the software. Also see previous paragraph.
Issue: The HC finish order for each race. If the HC system is working well then the competitor who comes first on HCC Time should change rather often from race to race. Likewise for second, third etc. So for each race the HCC finish order will probably change and hence spread the weekly honours around whereas for scratch (yardstick) results it is not uncommon for just a few competitors to always be in the first , second and third places.
Issue: the aggregate/Series winner on handicap is the same as the aggregate scratch winner. An aggregate/Series score is the sum of all a competitor’s scores over a Series usually with the exclusion of 1 or more ‘dropped/discarded’ scores. These dropped scores being each competitors worst score(s). If a Series has 11 races and one drop then the 10 best scores for each competitor will be summed to provide his/her aggregate/Series score. BUT for any competitor who has only sailed say 8 races then such a competitor will have included in his/her sum of scores the 2 large DNC scores and can not even discard one score. So if there are only a small number of competitors who have sailed 10 or 11 races whereas most competitors have only sailed 8 or less, then that small bunch of regular sailors will probably take out the top places in the aggregate. As it is usually the better sailors who tend to be the regular attendees, then even if they are penalised with a large HC values they will still feature towards the front of both the aggregate scratch and aggregate HC scores simply because they have few DNCs to load down the aggregate score!!
So how to improve the HC system in your club??? Lots of clubs have the problem of very intermittent attendance by sailors. Suggestions
There are other TopYacht papers that cover various aspects of handicapping, some in rather more detail. Many of these are found in the appendices of the User Guide. Rod McCubbin TopYacht software
Last Month's topic was...... NEW BLOOD !!! As we talk to many Clubs we are asked lots of questions to do with TopYacht, to do with race scoring and to do with handicapping but one other topic keeps raising it head.... How do you get new people interested in sailing and how do you get them to join your club? We would be very interested in your ideas on this topic. Please take the time to give us a few of your ideas or experiences. Then we will share those with others from this site.
PREVIOUS TOPIC WAS.... Problems in scoring sailing events - Focusing on Inadequate Sailing Instructions
Over the last 18 months we have been involved in helping provide results/score a number of major Regattas as well as a number of Club Series. Below is a list of key problems/issues have become apparent from this involvement. Most sailing organisations mistakenly think that scoring a Series is a simple and therefore a fast task that any one can do. Organisations ......
* fail to provide a step by step checking/confirmation of data.
Often the attitude is one of she'll be right mate! This attitude causes many race scorers to want to bail out! Add to the above list the fact that at the end of the regatta the results seem to be needed instantly, often after 3 back to back races of mixed classes that has provided unreadable, unchecked finish sheets! A further problem is that race management personnel/race committees fail to appreciate the often significant difficulties they introduce for the race scorer if the scoring rules are altered from standard ISAF RRS. While various of these issues are addressed in other papers from TopYacht the remainder of this paper will focus on race scoring issues introduced by poorly written sailing instructions. Issues for your next Sailing Instructions. Series Tie Breaking. The current Tie breaking system has multiple flaws at level 2 and is simply unworkable due to its poor definition. It is therefore strongly suggested that you use the newer ISAF ATrial Appendix 2 (in toto) with the possible replacement of the last sentence of A2.2 (b) with "If a tie still remains it shall be broken in favour of the boat that obtained her next best score nearest the end of the series; if this fails to break the tie then her next best etc." The Trial version of A2 is available from the ISAF Internet site. Abandoning races. For a Regatta, an abandoned race can either be run the next day or just completely abandoned/ignored. For a Series that is sailed over several months then the abandoned race should either be sailed next week and subsequent races moved forward in your calendar OR the abandoned race left abandoned forever OR alternately another race can be added to the end of the Series to make up the total number. BUT, it is not viable to re-sail the abandoned race at the end of the Series and then input the results back into say race 3 (that was to have been sailed 6 weeks previously) because performance handicaps are a sequential maths and MUST be done in progressive order or the results will be a nonsense. Further, score discards, under the new trial Appendix 2, where the are "equal worse scores, the score for race sailed earliest in the series will be excluded". So re-running race 3 many weeks later could cause a jury an interesting conundrum. Summary: If you abandon race 3 and want 10 viable races in the Series then either sail race 3 the next week and shuffle all later races forward OR add a race number 11 at the end of the series and ignore the scores for the abandoned race. Updating Handicaps. If today=s weather and the fleet size etc suggest that the HCs should/should not be updated from results of this race then who makes that decision and when is it carried out ?? Change of Sail Number. This must be done on a written form and duly authorized before it is entered into the computer by the race scorer. Otherwise chaos may ensue. Spell out in writing who has authority to instruct the race scorer to change to Scores etc. Late Series Entrants. After much input from a number clubs and other sailing authorities, TopYacht software has implemented the following..... A late entrant into a Series is given a "Late Entrant" score for each race in the Series that was sailed prior to the competitor joining the Series. This Late Entrant score being the DNC score for the first, non abandoned race which was run after the competitor joined the Series; these scores are automatically generated by TopYacht. DNC scores awarded to other competitors in the previous races are not altered. This system is deemed to be a fair system and one which involves the least amount of messing about for the race scorer. Other systems can be manually implemented by the race scorer at the expense of quite some time?? Unrelated Issues Order of race processing. For several reasons including the ongoing nature of handicaps (mentioned above) it is essential that the races are set up one at a time, then processed, checked etc before the next race is set up. Running a standalone Regatta for mixed classes. Make sure your Entry Forms provide a separate box for every item of data that you need to feed into the computer. The MAJOR area that causes problems is the area of class. Sailors need access to a list of the recognised classes. For example to just write down Hobbie Cat does not define the class; it needs to be Hobbie 16 or Hobbie Turbo etc. Rod McCubbin ( Project co-ordinator TopYacht Software.) PREVIOUS TOPIC WAS.... DNC For Late Entrants in a Series. (A TopYacht discussion paper)
Incidently the RRS defines DNC as ‘Did Not Come to start’ not as ‘Did Not Compete’. When a competitor joins a Series after the Series has commenced there is a need to provide a score for that competitor for the races already run in the Series before he/she joined the Series. There is also the problem of what scores to award those who had already received a DNC for earlier races. After much debate there seem to be two alternatives. Alternative one. Once a competitor has joined a Series he/she will be awarded points for each race that was run prior to his/her joining the Series. Those points will be the DNC value that was applicable to the first race run after the competitor joined that Series. All competitors that had already joined the Series will retain the DNC point score that was applicable for the race when it was originally run. This system provides two advantages. It is an incentive to join the Series from the first race. Secondly you don’t have to enter every new competitor into each earlier race and reprocess all the races every time a new competitor joins. TopYacht calculates the relevant ‘late entrant’ DNCs on the fly and provides them to the Aggregate Scoring task. Alternative two. If your Club believes that all competitors should have been awarded the same DNC points irrespective of the time they joined the Series then you can enter the new competitor(s) into each race in the Series and reprocess each race. This will then increase the DNC point value to suit the elevated number of entrants in the Series. Some Clubs use this system but also specify a ‘cut off’ race. After the cut off race any new entrants are treated as visitors and not given scores for any race in that Series although they are given places for each race in which they compete.. TopYacht provides 3 types of DNC scores i.e. RRS A2.2 (Regatta) DNC = Number of competitors in the Series plus one. RRS A5 (Series) DNC = Number of competitors on the water plus one. TopYacht club scoring. DNC = Number of competitors in the Series plus one plus a scale factor determined by the percentage of those who turned up for the race. The lower the number that turned up the lower the DNC score but it is always greater then the DNF score. There are three DNC values awarded to any competitor for a race. The DNC points for DNCs with in the Fleet, a second value for within the Division and one for within the class. Those on the water is defined as every competitor in the Series less the number that DNC’d for that race.
PREVIOUS TOPIC WAS.... Racing Rules of Sailing.??? As we provide scoring software to various Regattas and as we install software at various clubs we are finding amazing variations in how Regattas or Club Series are scored! In Tennis there is one set of rules used universally, the same is true for hockey, basket ball, soccer etc. For sailing the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing spell out the rules for our sport. It seems to me that there is a need for all clubs and organizations to use the official rules and not introduce their own variations for scoring. If your club uses its own variation then not only is it going against the internationally defined rules but it is also doing you a disservice in that when you sail a Regatta you may find that the scoring rules are not what you expect! I for one would like to see all clubs and all Regattas use the same rules. I believe that if there is a change needed then such a change should be lobbied for at the state, then national then international level. If you have thoughts on this topic then please Email to us to share your ideas with others.
Rod McCubbin Project co-ordinator TopYacht (Software).
PREVIOUS TOPIC WAS.... Re scoring of sub groups with in a regatta. I hope that your class association/group will discuss the concept below in the aim of providing as much interest and enthusiasm as possible for your Regattas/Series. From my involvement in helping run/score major and minor events over the last few years, I have observed distinct variations in how sub Series of a Series/Regatta have been scored. These sub Series may be the juniors, the Master (Veterans) or whatever. In my opinion the way many associations score these sub Series is against the spirit of the RRS and also may dampen the enthusiasm and interest of some competitors in the sub Series.
Method one (the one I don't like) All competitors are scored for their position within the main fleet. Then the sub Series groups are given the scores that they were awarded within the fleet. These scores are then summed to provide a final score for the sub division.
Method two (produces closer scoring) All competitors are scored within the fleet. Then all competitors are re-scored for their sub Series. That is the juniors are scored against the position they achieved when compared to just the other juniors. Likewise the Vetrans, etc..
So what difference does it all make? At the recent Australian Tasar Nationals a DNC for the Tasar fleet was 108 points. If they had used system one ( which they did not!) then a Junior or Master who had received several DNCs with in the main fleet had simply no way to move to the top end of the scoring for their sub group. Under which circumstances the Juniors/Masters might well have lost interest or enthusiasm !! Now, a DNC for the Juniors was only 12 points so even two of those were not insurmountable. For the Masters it was 16 points, again not insurmountable. This same principle applies for any score towards the bottom of the fleet. If a junior carries a few 99s then they can't possible win or be in near the top of the Junior fleet (and they know it!) whereas a few 8's or 9's and they still have a chance. Put another way. Use the system where each competitor is only being compared with their peers not the entire fleet. I believe this to be the intention of the Racing Rules of Sailing when it states "..boats will be scored ...(with respect to)..the number of boats in the Series." In the case of the Junior Sub Series there were only 11 boats not all 107! Keep their overall fleet scores because they are relevant to their performance within the fleet but also re-score them in the Sub Series. Remember the Tasars DID use what I consider the better system. I am just drawing on their results to illustrate what would have happened if they had scored using the other method.
Aside from potentially damping enthusiasm can the system two produce a different out comes to system one?? YES! It can. I enclose a sub section of the results of the recent Tasar nationals. This Regatta was scored using system two above. These results shown below were available for public scrutiny on the Internet at the CYBER GRAPHICS site. Check out the fates of boats named Ultralite, TBA and True Blue. First check in the over all Fleet results then in the Masters results. 1998 Australian Tasars Nationals, 1998 Australian Tasars Nationals Masters. You should observe that when scored just against their peers the outcome is in fact different to what it would have been if the fleet scores had been used. Further as the number of races progressed it was anyone's race for positions 2 to 6 within the Masters Series. In this example from a real Series the eventual places equal third, fifth and sixth in the Masters were also very tight in the fleet. But it is easy to imagine a situation where, if sub dicision scores had been taken from their fleet scores, then one or more of these competitors could have ended up with a 'no hope' situation in their sub division well before the last race. When you sail at your club you sail in a class and/ or a division. When each race is scored you don't expect the scores in your class or division to be affected by the scores in other classes / divisions. So I believe it should be for sub fleets or sub Series in a major regatta. It is not difficult to set up a Regatta to achieve the system outlined above using TopYacht software or even scoring it by hand. So please consider this system for your next regatta if in fact you are not already using it. My aim with this document is to show a race management system that I believe produces as interesting and exciting racing as possible for Sub Series at large regattas. Rod McCubbin Project co-ordinator TopYacht Software.
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