To follow on from John’s email regarding the use of the Fleet field to group the boats for scoring and the Class field as the type of boat, the ABYC user guide has four definitions, which are important to understand. See below.
It is important to understand some basic concepts that are used in Sailwave. If you don’t understand the terminology it is easy to get confused.
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From: sailwave@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sailwave@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Jon Eskdale
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 7:41 AM
To: sailwave@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [sailwave] Anyone up for some NHC Testing of 2014 version?
Hi Patrick,
Firstly thank you for choosing Sailwave - I’m sure you made the right decision. And thanks to Ian for running the course.
First if you use the internal mode of calculation there is no limitation on the number of boats. - The template size can be easily adjust see following.
I would recommend that you use the Fleet field to group the boats for scoring. Use the Class field as the type of boat. You may be able to get it to work with other configurations but this way it definitely works and if we all keep to the same definitions then every thing is simpler. Especially if you are running multiple fleets in the same file.
As you have obviously seen the NHC 2014 version is now available so you might like to use that.
It is relatively easy to increase the size of the Excel template
Open the template in Excel and copy any of the lines in the main area lets take lines 30 - 34 as an example.
Select lines 30-34 by left clicking on the number 30 on the left side and while holding the mouse button move down to 34 you have now selected 5 lines
right click on the 30 and select copy and then right click again and select insert copied cells - you have now increased the template by 5 lines
On the config worksheet change the sheet size parameter to the new size and save the template as an xls file - That should be it
Selecting what size of template to use is just a compromise if you make it bigger then the file sizes will get larger and the calculations slower
Make is smaller and the file sizes get smaller and the calculations faster.
If you want to perform the calculations to the standard NHC rules then using the internal is simpler and faster. Using the external and Excel you can do virtually anything you like and you can adjust the parameters as to how fast or slowly it adjusts the handicaps. Having said that - if it is only the parameters such as the adjustment factors and the Standard deviation limits these can also be adjusted for the internal calculations using an .ini file - If you want to do this please contact me for details.
I did develop a template that performed the calculations according to the ECHO standard although this may be a little out of date now as I haven’t seen the latest specs for ECHO - but it can certainly be done.
Jon
Jon Eskdale
Sailwave
03333 443377
07976 709777
On 24 March 2014 13:54, Patrick Blaney patrick.blaney@gmail.com wrote:
Jon,
I am new to Sailwave, attended a course run by Ian Bowring recently, and think I now have a good grasp of the basics, and how to enter results and score series. I am no computer expert, but with some help (mostly basic instructions) can probably both understand and follow detailed non expert instructions, but complex file management (beyond the basics) and the like are beyond my pay grade. My research of the available results programmes and how they are organised, and the many people I have talked to who are far more expert than I, has convinced me that Sailwave is the right programme - but we have to do the work to get familiar with it and, if applicable, adapt it to our needs in time.
My club is a cruiser racing club, on a large inland lake, 32 miles in length, and with our 2 sister clubs (on the lake) we have a maximum possible fleet of 67 boats, a wide cross section of types, configurations and vintages (not to mention the sailing abilities of their owners) so the handicapping methodology used to keep the fleet internally competitive is an art as much as a science. More regularly the fleet is 25 to 30 boats reasonably split between the 2 classes. We have 3 clubs involved in racing, all boats sail the same course and the fleet is divided into 2 Classes, Class 2 (smaller boats) which starts 15 to 30 minutes (separation depends on race length) ahead of Class 1. We need to do results by Class, including for a Combined Class (Class 1 and 2) and, on occasion also by Club. We do our results (and prizegiving) in a car park with very poor wifi/3g internet/mobile reception, and no printer, so the laptop screen is the first point of call for reviewing results which are later posted on our website and emailed to all who sailed in that race. We don’t have a clubhouse, just use the 2 small local pubs (very sociable) where the sailors congregate after sailing.
We use the ECHO Handicapping system, and adjust the handicaps based on a very old excel spreadsheet developed (by unknown source) back c. 2000 or even before, which looks at how a boat performed in the last race and updates your handicap on a very smoothed basis. It seems to be so smoothed and perhaps also the application of the adjustments so subjective (in the past) that we would like to try and run the RYA NHC System for 2014, but firstly run our 2013 results through the current (Club) version of NHC and see what the outcome would have been on 2013 before taking it on for 2014. Ideally a more progressive ECHO system would be ideal but the RYA NHC seems to do that job using algorithms that have been tried and tested. Maybe with both greater knowledge of Sailwave and whats going on with the handicapping generally we can make some fleet specific adjustments - but for now I want to stick with the formulaic (objective) approach and see how if that works better.
In the past we have adjusted handicaps both after each race (a lot of trouble as this was done manually) and, more recently, after each series. Last year we had 3 boats new to the lake and they ran away with most of the trophies, in 1 case because the starting handicap (base handicap) was not reflective of the boats performance and it took too long for our ECHO smoothing (and Sailing Secretary) to adjust the handicap upwards, and in the other 2 cases because while the boats were similar to existing boats in the fleet, the skippers involved were far better sailors and regularly produced results 50% better than their identical competition. All of these problems were initial handicaps that were wrong or not adjusted quickly enough. For boats which have raced regularly by the same crews over several years, the handicap movements were pretty small.
I have set up my fleet so that we use our old handicap system (adjusted after each series) and, with aliases, use the NHC Handicaps in parallel. My first problem is that in the April 2013 series with 25 boats, I have already exceeded the maximum available (40 boat) spreadsheet (SWHelper and Excel) and need to increase that (but don’t know how). In later series there are 50 boats so ideally I need a spreadsheet that can cater for 60 to 80 boats to give me a little room for expansion.
I have set up all the various series (and there are 5 in total) and in the Classes column used the boat type - e.g J24, using instead “Division” which I have renamed “Start Class” to split the fleet up between Class 1 and 2 for results purposes.
I am happy to plod along and work my way through the problems as I encounter them, once the initial set up is good, so any set up advice and help would be appreciated, particularly how to increase the SWHelper capabilities beyond 40 boats.
Many thanks
Patrick Blaney
On 23 March 2014 18:26, jon@sailwave.com wrote:
Hi All,
As most of you know the RYA have change the specification for NHC for 2014.
Approx 6 weeks ago I issued a new template that supported the new standard when you were working in External/ Excel mode. Today I have updated the SWHelper file, so that internal mode will also use the 2014 specification. You can download the new SWHelper.exe from
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/220425/SWHelper.EXE
If you replace the SWHelper.exe which is in the Sailwave Program directory with this new version (V1.4) then internal calculations will use the 2014 rules
If you want to use the 2013 rules for any reason then you need to use the old version (V1.3.2) this is available at:- https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/220425/SWHelper1-3-2.EXE remember to rename it to SWHelper.exe when you put it in the Sailwave program directory.
For those that have missed it previously the NHC 2014 template is available at
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/220425/SWNHC3.xls
Note the RYA have enhanced what was the club mode and removed the regatta mode so there is just a single NHC now which is a bit simpler.
I’ve tested this new internal mode against the test file and I get the same results for internal and external modes of calculation (Phew!!!) But if anyone could run some of their data through it - There’s nothing like trying real data. a) let me know if the internal and external ever get different results - hopefully not and b) are the results sensible!! I would be very grateful.
Note the RYA have specified a minimum no of Finishers of 3 before ratings get changed. This can be adjusted in the Template very easily and also the internal calculation can be changed by the use of an ini file.
I’ll shortly be updating the main Sailwave app to remove the regatta mode but if you use club mode with any version from 2.9.7 onwards then it should work just fine.
Jon
