Have added a late entry (Kaleb) ...

Thanks for posting yesterdays results Dave

I love the gunfights I think they are such a fun format. Yesterday is a classic example of a day when it can be super fun with sailors putting it on the line.
Board, fin, sail, wind, chop, and sailor must all come together on the day. This is sailing at it's best. Mates have a run and laugh pushing each other just fantastic.


Long live the Gunfight




I like you total point score format Dave. I think it works perfect for thinking about all categories' across the day

buzzy said..

Structured, in the idea that an official contributing WT GPS division needs to have a level playing field i.e. All sailors at the same location and the same saling time frame.

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Thinking about this further; it may be good to have dates and times set but an open location state wide. This would help sailors that cannot find the time to travel to the other end of the state. It would also mean anyone wishing to chase the ultimate location advantage could do so. The only limit is on the individuals choice of location.

On the other hand if sailors are located all over the state then you are not sailing against the other sailors, but the conditions you are dealt with and the sailors in that immediate location. It doesn't matter how the scores are tallied, you cant get a proper picture of sailor comparisons, which is what competition is all about.

I'm looking at this primarily from the perspective of having GPS as an official contributing discipline for WT, not just local fun comps.




What are peoples thoughts???

I have an assignment due soon so i decided to procrastinate by comparing the 'cumulative points' style used this weekend to the 'regatta' style of scoring used at Stanley.

Points to note:

1.
The Regatta Style is much more inclined to produce dead heats (Steve, Kaleb and Will would have all come second at Dorans using this method)

2.
The cumulative method is severely biased toward the the three longer categories (Alpha, nM and Hour). To show this I took the standard deviation (SD) of each category and found that in every instance the 2sec SD was significantly lower than that of the Alpha, nM and Hour. What this means is that winning the 2sec (SD @ PortSorrel = 1.7 Knots) will effectively only be worth 1/3 to 1/2 as much as winning the nM (SD @ PortSorrel = 5.2 Knots)

If anyone's interested in how the two scoring methods compare here is my working......

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jrYrkcz7pFZYkKR9s3kHso27AKL7Jx9tJJUrRZMzNVI/edit#gid=0

Also to even things out a bit with the not so faster competitors you could include distance as well. Then us slower and smaller framed individuals have a chance at making up numbers somewhere. Or some sort of handicap system to make things more even and encourage others to participate. So the faster/more accomplished sailors have to push themselves harder. People tend to not bother after a while if they're no good at it.
For the Team purposes to get Tassie Speed Seekers up on the charts more, on the discipline or disciplines we need to improve on we could run those events for the comp then we could kill 2 birds with one stone (sorry birds).

Nice stuff BFlood! The dead heat scenario, I think was one of Dave's positive points to go with the accumulative format. This said, the more competitors you have the less chance there is of dead heats. It also needs to be noted that we are in that same situation for slalom racing.

There is another option.......Use the accumulated method to come up with the placing's for the event and use the category placing's as points to go towards the overall result for the year.
This way at a GPS event you would see who won each category(these would be the placing points that go towards the overall, with one out of 5 dropped) but the placings for the event would be calculated using the accumulated results.

I'm starting to like this idea

I'm also supportive of Kazzas proposal of including distance, this has a lot of issues with it though and will need further discussion.

I like the cumulative points system with Pbs worth an extra 10 points

How about something like:

Score = (2s)/A + (5x10)/B + (1 hour)/C + (alpha)/D + (NM)/E + (distance)/F

where

A=30, B=30, C=10, D=20, E=20, F=20 (for open competition)

with double points in a category for a PB.

Factors A,B,C,D,E and F are chosen to make each part contribute a value of about 1 to the overall score.

To encourage more woman and juniors there would be the potential to have various categories (eg open, women, junior (<17) and child (<12)), with appropriate factors A,B,C,D,E and F In each category, allowing for competition within a category and also for all results to be pooled for an overall "handicap" event in addition to the open and category events.

buzzy said..

BFlood said..

On Kazza's Concept....what if points were awarded on a 'percentage of PB' basis?

e.g. for 2sec

Perks (PB: 46.15): 40.35 knots...score= 0.874
Kazza (PB: 37.04): 33.08 knots...score= 0.893

while this method would constantly encourage people to better their PBs it doesnt exactly reward perks for setting the state record....and Dave will have to get up pretty damn early if he ever wanted to finish on the distance podium

YOU HAVE GONE TOOO FAR< STOP IT

I'm not big heading myself but there is a physical difference between men and women obviously, strength, weight, endurance. It's pretty difficult for me to be up there against guys fairly and equally. So my thoughts of handicapping with GPS and slalom would bring competition to a fair game not just for me but also lower ranked sailors that also just want to be up there as well but never have a chance to. Yacht racing is handicapped, car racing, Browns River kayak races do as well. You have like with the Sydney to Hobart Yacht race, the line honour winners (to show the true skill and expertise of sailors up there) and the overall handicap winners. This would really encourage more participants and they'd feel valued as one of the gang! But you couldn't have people wearing weight vests though with the handicap system obviously.(or eating lot's of chocolate cakes 5 days before competition)

A handicap suggestion to even things out for Kazza, and other smaller bodies, in the (2sec and 5x speed) categories:
Divide the speed in knots by the weight in kilograms (including any weights worn in addition) then multiply by 80 (this being roughly an ``average weight??).

This would mean anybody less than 80kg would have their number boosted, anyone over would have it decreased. Would depend on people supplying their correct weights, and disclosing additional weights they are wearing).

The weight-adjusted results might just be seen as a secondary table out of interest, rather than the main event.

Just a thought, in case we needed more complexities to consider.

Anthony - PB's could update - PRB's - Personal Recent Best - in the same way that golf handicaps do... then the age discrimination would be diminished.

Yes I think you're right about the weights, Dave. No evidence to prove the advantage. Some light weight guys producing some great results.
In fact most of our top guys are not big guys.
A.Perx, the Little Master, is the Tendulkar of Tassie speedsailing.
Cookie goes fast because he sails very efficiently and is very focused.

I think the way the GTC is set up now is the simplest and best way.
It's interesting to look at other ways of measuring competition, interesting for curiosity more than anything else.
Keeping it simple is always better.
In fact even simpler, is sailing just for the fun, without competition.
I find I enjoy sailing more when fun is my main motivation, not measuring myself against some other guy.
For most of the past 20 years 95% of sailing for me has been completely solo, in the past 10 years I?ve averaged 4-5 days sailing every week, though one or 2 of those will be marginal conditions, and fitness is the motivation, rather than the adrenalin rush.
The last couple of years, sailing at Stanley with other guys has changed the ratio to about 50% sailing solo. I love having a blast with 3 or 4 mates on the water. But the competition side is still just a small part of it.

Competition means different things to different people. We have a bunch of guys (and gal) succeeding at the highest level. That's inspiring to see.

It's interesting to see that attempts to make things competitive for others at different levels but it certainly can get complicated. Depends on how much effort you want to put into that sort of thing.

I'd rather just go for a blast.

At the moment and from the examples given I do not support a handicap system. Not surprising I know

The situation Karen is in is an exception as we don't have any women to create a Womens division. Karen is going to have to adopt the 'Harden the F up' handicap system until we find more female sailors.

A PB handicap system has so many variables. Most people with high PB's have put in a lot of hours and travelling to achieve them. Most high PB's have been earned in exceptional conditions. Everyone has the opportunity to achieve high PB's but only some have chosen to chase them, these people should not be handicapped for their efforts.

Where this can be a problem is that the competition conditions normally do not match the conditions that people gained their high PB's. An example is at Dorans. A typical high 2 sec at Dorans could be between 34 and 38(roughly) Perks has a PB of about 46.15, Russ has a PB of 41.44. AT Dorans Russ is dam hard to match for 2 sec and its the place he sails regularly. Straight away Russ is guaranteed of beating Perks and most other people with a higher 2sec PB simply because he hasn't attended the same speed days as Perks or others.(sorry to use you as the example Russ)
This is not a handicap but an unfair advantage as Doran is near impossible for Perks to get anywhere near his PB or possibly even match Russ at the location.(sorry Perks)

Same goes for Alpha. Izaak has a record he recorded at Lake George, there is no way in hell that Izaak is going to get near that if he goes in a comp held at Dorans. Yet the guys that sail there all the time and gybe really well in the conditions may out gybe him on the day and they may only have 24 knot PB's.

A handicap system based on PB's would make the guys with high PB's not bother attending any events as they would not be competitive in the given conditions and it is these guys that want to compete and want to be competitive.

The only way a PB system would work is if we used the persons PB that is specific to the location the comp is being held. This is not possible!!!

As far as swimming goes, PB's are attained in a stationary body of water, there are a few variables from one pool to another but certainly not the variables there are in windsurfing. Absolutely no comparison between a speed strip in 40 knots and an ocean in 18 knots. Or a flat lake with 35 knots and a churned up estuary with 50 knots.

Yachting handicap is based on the class of vessel. Different scenario all together.

Golfing handicaps are created from, firstly identify the player?s most recent 20 scores, then a whole lot of other stuff then on. Not a sailors one off PB.

Browns river Kayak race handicap is calculated after they run a time trial first up, then they stagger the fleet from slowest to fastest.

Car racing handicap is based on lap times for the track they are racing on, calculated from several trial laps.

I don't think it would be possible or even very productive to send everyone out for an hour then collect all the results and calculate everyone's handicap for each of the categories before we even start an event.

The other thing to remember is all of the examples given are for a race situation, a start to finish one off result. GPS sailing is in a situation that is looking for 5 results(or six) from one set duration, things are a little more complicated in this setting.

A competition is about challenging yourself to rise to the challenge. Unfortunately in Aus we have a big problem with people not being involved in competition because they don't think they are good enough to be at the front. WTF, yes competition is about finding who is the best in the given conditions but it is so much more. It gives you the opportunity to gauge yourself, take stock and find ways to improve and challenge yourself. It doesn't matter if your battling it out with Joe Blow in the Middle of the field or out in front. The most rewarding and inspiring thing is when you finally work out why you arer stuck in the middle of the pack and suddenly leave Joe Blow behind to find someone new to challenge on the way to the top.

I'm always willing to change my view of course! I realise there's more to the handicap systems I've listed, just thought I'd keep it simple.

buzzy said..



The situation Karen is in is an exception as we don't have any women to create a Womens division. Karen is going to have to adopt the 'Harden the F up' handicap system until we find more female sailors.

Nioceeee. I think you may mean accept the situation

I must say it's sailing with you fella's that has helped me with my results. 1 bonus....only 1

Well said Dave..... Kaleb those examples are totally irrelevant and allready proven incorrect... You have me convinced your still not over the whole lake George thing