To PY or not to PY

[casablanca]

Ian,

Just wondering where you were off to that's new for a BM? My guess would be Redditch or Ragley Hall, but have heard a rumour thst Ragley Hall may be closing

[ianedwards]

Earlswood Lakes, I was doing very well until I dropped it on the run, I started with the Solo's in a pursuit and left them in the dust, had only been overtaken by one Laser when I dropped it after about twenty minutes, just have to improve my open water sailing particulary when running afor the lea. Lots of interest in the boat particularly when they saw her flying downwind.

[casablanca]

Hadn't thought of Earlswood, have only been there once & that was for a walk, should thnik quite good Moth water tho, especially on the summer with all the trees.

[paultp]

The more I read on this the more I think I understand the PY system.

The yachts and yachting site have another PY thread going at the mo and on about page 5 it explains how it is worked out and why someone sailing their boat very well can beat the PY of the boat.

www.intersail.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7546&PN=1&title=sail-juice-py-stats

I think I'll just accept the PY now and get on with sailing the boat as it looks like the RYA do the best they can from the results they get.

[colin]

Paul,

See the new Chrysalis (out soon) for my broader comments on handicap racing.

Colin

[paultp]

Can't wait!

Meanwhile, I think we should run a sweep regarding what the BM PY will be this year (announced at The Dinghy Show).

I'm going for 1166.

Cheers
Paul

PS I think the streaker PY will also drop by 2 so it shouldn't affect me banditting the evening series this year ;D

[paultp]

New PY numbers already out!

......

........ -4 to 1164 !!!

It's gone from 1173 to 1164 in 2 seasons - unbelievable really.

Streaker hasn't moved at 1162

New PY Numbers

[pegasus]

WHAT! I cannt even keep up with the Comets and they are now 1179. The only good news is the SOLO is now 1153. The RYA is getting the British Moth confused with the International Moth by any chance?

[the black pig]

have been in contact with a member of the py committee.
the returns they had ranged from 1146 to 1168.
so a figure of 1164 is not too bad.
it could have been a lot worse!

also to look at it another way, a four point move makes about 13 seconds differance in a race lasting 1 hour.
which is about the same as one bad tack.

hope this info helps.

[paultp]

When you say "returns" what do you mean? Actual race times or suggestions from clubs? How many returns did they get and from where?

Apparently nobody sails a moth worse than its PY? I really find that hard to believe unless the sample size is so small the results are skewed.

So this years reduction = 13 seconds in an hour and last years reduction = 17 seconds in an hour so I now start 30 seconds later in a pursuit race (5 seconds in front of the streakers). That actually makes quite a big difference as far as I'm concerned, I sail both boats and know which one is faster in anything except a force 0.5.

I'm quite surprised that the reaction to this continued reduction in PY is one of "It could be worse". Since 1997ish, the PY has dropped from 1183 to 1164 which equates to 1 minute in an hour, 30 seconds of which have come in the last two seasons. I suppose if you sail in a fleet of moths it doesn't really matter but in a handicap fleet it really does.

Someone on the Y&Y site suggested growing the class at clubs which don't have a fleet already but I question how you can introduce a class that is clearly uncompetitive in anything other than very light winds.

I'm still going to sail my BM because I really love it but 784 will only get an outing on Wednesday evenings this year and probably in the future. I'm sailing my much more competitive streaker in the Sunday handicaps.

[Meat Pie ...]

Paul
Take a look at the Returns procedure and format on the RYA web-site.
Spoke to a Committee Member only this morning about the new P.Y.No.He was in touch with the RYA yesterday at the Dinghy Show.The RYA will be sending him details of the returns so we know who has sent them in.Will be very surprised if there are any significant changes from those Clubs who filed returns last year...principally restricted water/river Clubs or those with only 1 or 2 Moths.
Personally the new P.Y.No does not worry me too much but I do accept it could be an issue for new recruits.I have suggested that the Committee does appeal against the change if appropriate after seeing the detail and an appeal is meritted.
As you rightly suggest the sample size may be small and yes the results as a result are or may be skewed.
Arguably we at Frampton have 4 out of the 6 fastest Moths currently[based on 2010 Nationals and Somerville Results].This is not meant to be a boast but an indication of how these same Boats perform in what I consider to be an average to good Handicap Fleet on a small lake[30-40 acres] at Frampton.
In any breeze of Force 3 or more we cannot get near Solo,s,Fireflies,Enterprise,s,Laser,s etc..
on corrected times.
Although the P.Y. No,s are supposed to take average results from a fleet and average out the wind conditions/strengths it fails in our case in my opinion.
The long held regard for a British Moth is that it is competitive in light and fluky winds and is especially competitive at the more restricted Sailing venues.This has always been the case and seems to be very true to this day.This has and generally fits the Class as fact shows that most indeed ARE sailed on such waters.
Also bear in mind that in a Force 3 and above a British Moth is a challenge to some to sail and race efficiently and because of this few venture out in stronger winds.
Conclusion...apart from a possible appeal ?
Still sail and enjoy your British Moth at your home Club whatever and try to attend some of the excellent Open Meetings that are scheduled for the 2011 Season.
Roger Witts

[the black pig]

paul,
the trouble is the moth is a one trick pony. it does well on rivers in light wind, so most of the returns come from river clubs. and i have tried to explain to this to my contact on the py committee.

the py committee can only work with the information it is given. so as a class all you can do is get more returns in from open water or try and get the river clubs to stop sending in returns.

does your club do returns?
ours does not because we mostly do pursuits. which is a good job, because pete's and elaine's results would make the handicap even worse!

for your information the py committee uses 3 years of returns, weighted to favour the most recent year.
this year 4 clubs did returns, they were bristol avon, desborough, west oxford and royal findhorn.
other returns used from 2009/8 came from broxbourne, cam,frampton(in 2008) and the king george race in 2009. i do not know the number of returns but i do know it was a simlar number to the bytes,europe's and 49ers.
duncan

[Meat Pie ...]

2011 returns were seemingly used from 2 River Clubs.1 Lake and 1 Estuary/coastal location.2010 saw 7 returns but not all were used I understand[Frampton,s was not used].
Suggest the number of boats from 3 of the returning Clubs was low...too low.
BASC have probably only 1 regular Moth racing joined by 2 others very occaisionally.
WOSC have 2 racing regularly with an occaisional 3rd joining in I understand.
Royla Findhorn has 1 Moth
Desborough is the only true Fleet Club filing a return.
If returns from 2008 and 2009 had to be used then the 2011 stats must have been pretty dire !
Broxbourne have very few Moths left and even fewer racing I believe.
Cam have a smallish Fleet I think....max 4 or 5 boats out.
Frampton filed a return in 2008.
King George has 1 Moth I think.
3 out of these 4 returns are Lakes so the stats should have been favourable.

Again accepting and agreeing with Duncan that the RYA can only do the Maths on what info they are provided with the latest adjustment may in part be justified but to my mind very contestable.
Reasonably strong grounds to appeal none the less..
RW

[paultp]

I've asked the question of our sailing secretary to see if Ripon SC put in returns. I'm fairly sure we do but I'll check. I probably contributed to the cut in PY by winning 7 out of 11 races in the frostbite series! Ooops!

Meanwhile, from the Ripon SC web site:

Bas Edmonds (RYA Technical Committee) will give a Portsmouth Yardstick talk in the clubhouse on Weds 30th at 7:00pm.

Might just go along. I'd be grateful of any information anyone can give me about this years and last years PY returns and reasons for the drops so I can be prepared rather than just go along and rant.

From the above it would seem that if they only get a few returns they go back to previous years and include more until they have "enough" to work out a PY. Presumably if they keep reusing the same returns year after year plus a few more, they will always decide to reduce the PY.

I know I'm banging on about this but if you look at other classes that suffered a relatively high cut there is usually a reason:

Graduate -5 = new design of sail (larger) and new manufacturers re-styling hull
Phantom -5 = again, recent re-design of boat, new materials etc
49-er -5 = probably because it is an olympic class and so it is constantly being refined, plenty of new boats and attracts top sailors.
Musto Skiff -15 (!) = too fast for its own good
British Moth -4 = errr.... really good in a light wind

[paultp]

From our Sailing sec:

"We registered to send in our returns from Sailwave but the additional data processing they required was too involved and time consuming."

Not sure what the extra work was and am just checking whether a normal return went in.

Given that Ripon has a Streaker fleet of 26, a return would surely have an effect on the Streaker PY as that seems to be a higher number than the total number of moths considered by the RYA.