Sailwave supports both the Rinderle and Austrian High Point Scoring Systems natively. Can someone share the Sailwave formulas that could be used as a Custom High Point Formula? I am interested in tweaking and seeing results.
Thanks,
Jerry
Hi Jerry,
Welcome back to the SUG.
Jon is the only person, I think, who can provide the algorithms used in Sailwave for Rinderle B and Austrian High Point scoring. Jon is away scoring the Techno Worlds in France, I expect he will respond when he has a chance but it may be after the event finishes.
I have just done a quick Internet search and so far have not come up with any algorithms. Others in the SUG may be able to provide links to documents or even algorithms. But Jon is the only person able to definitively say what they are in Sailwave.
Kind regards,
Huw
There are quite a few high-point systems you might use. Each has PROs
and CONs.
I somewhere have a formula for Rinderle B but you mostly see scoring
done from a table of scores. For example:
http://www1.headwaycloud.com/clients/52/uploaded_files/09_mbsa_book_march_9_d31kEF.pdf
[see page 57]
About 20 years ago I did a lot of research on high-point systems. The
best source is “Yacht Race Scoring” by F. Gregg Bemis (last published
edition 1984, I believe). As a result of that we came up with our own
system to be used locally for our Wed. night summer series; it is
generally referred to as the “Sunset” scoring system after the name of
the series. It and other systems have been discussed in the Sailwave
User Group and searching should find discussions.
I believe the most popular was Cox-Sprague, which was mostly used by
scoring from a lookup table but there was an actual formula. Others
discussed in the User Group were CHIPS and Rinderle B. I have heard of
the Austrian system but I don’t think I ever heard of it being used
(although I’m sure SOMEONE must be using it still).
There are lots of factors to consider when picking a high-point system,
such as:
Does it penalize boats that don’t come out for every race?
Does it take into account the number of starters?
Does it allow boats to skip a race or two?
Does it score the average (middle) boat in the fleet the same regardless
of class size?
Does it incentivize boats to stay ashore because their series score
could only get worse?
I’d be happy to discuss some of these considerations if you are
interested. In the meantime, I’m going to search old files for the
Rinderle B formula as googling " “Rinderle B” scoring formula " comes up
with lots of links but none that seem to have a formula that you could
easily use in Excel or adopt for Sailwave.
Art
Google gives a reference to a paper by Geoff Burrell on the CHIPS
scoring system. On my computer I found what I think is the same paper
and have posted it on-line at:
This paper should be in the files section of the user group but I don’t
know how to search that. The paper includes the Rinderle B formula. If I
recall correctly, I believe I was told that “Rinderle” was a guy from
the New England states in the US.
The paper references a table at gmora.org, which I found on archive.org
and have posted at:
Here is a link to a posting by me that includes the Sailwave formula for
the Sunset scoring system:
You can check out the plain math formula in the SIs at:
http://www.calyachtclub.com/files/2023Sunset_SI_Amended.pdf
Art
Thank you Art for the information. Are you the person who created the Sunset Scoring System? California Yacht Club? I have been trying to track down the the person who described the system as follows:
“We wanted to use the Percentage Point System (simple high point score for each race with your series score at the end being your total points divided by the total points if you had won every race you entered). This generates a kind of “efficiency” score at the end of the series. But, the system is so complicated that we didn’t think competitors would understand the system. So, we simplified it by generating an “efficiency” score for each race and then simply adding up the scores for every race. That way it is easy for a competitor to do his or her own calculations.
We have dubbed our system the “Sunset Scoring System” because our series is the “Sunset Series” (weeknights in the spring and summer). Each boat’s score is the number of boats beat plus .5 divided by the number of boats that start in that race. This gives a percentile ranking for each boat in a class. You can then multiply that percentile ranking by some fixed number of points. We use 9 so the resulting scores are all between 9 and 0. We then add 1 point for entering so scores for entered boats are between 10 and 1 with non-entered boats getting 0 points. We round points to 3 decimal places. The score at the end is simply the total for all races and Sailwave can readily do that.
The important thing about the Sunset system is that the middle boat in every class gets the same score regardless of class size (if you have an even number of boats then the two middle boats average to that score). Therefore, class size becomes strictly irrelevant. Systems like CHIPS give more weight to results in smaller classes meaning that the middle boat in a small class gets more points than a middle boat in a larger class; and, the same for other places as well.”
Is that your statement Art? May I quote you? I am putting together a scorkeepers’ handbook, which will be free for anyone interested, and I wanted to include the Sunset Scoring System. I contacted someone, please don’t ask me who because I don’t want to get them in trouble, but they did not know who developed the Sunset Scoring System.
As for Rinderle B, I have been trying to contact Jim Rinderle. I have a bunch of race officials from Buzzards Bay to Penobscot Bay trying to help me. I believe Jim came up with the tables in the early 80s. I found an entry in the Sailwave forums with a formula: Points= 100*(1-exp(-(s+4.6)/5.4))*(s-p)/(s-1) + 10.5. I do not believe this formula is Sailwave ready, to use as a custom formula. When I try it I receive an unknown variable error. I’m attaching a Rinderle B table that I created from the few I found on the internet.
Thanks,
Jerry
Jerry,
Your quote is certainly from me, though I cannot say where or when I
wrote it though I am sure it was on a public site somewhere. Feel free
to use it however you want.
We used a number of different scoring systems for the Sunset Series at
Cal YC over the years, changing every 2 or 3 years. Then in 2002 our
Chairwoman decided we should investigate whether we could come up with a
better system. Our needs were complicated because while boats scored
points in their class we also used those same points to determine
scoring for the overall trophy at the end of the season. This meant we
had to come up with something that was fair regardless of class size -
not just one race vs other races but one class vs other classes. I was
one member of the comm. asked to come up with a better system. I think
our work was a success as we haven’t had significant complaints for the
last 20 years!
I read through “Yacht Race Scoring” several times and came up with a
proposal. The comm. had some concerns so a few minor modifications were
made (I had points 0-10 but in the end it became 1-10). So, I suppose
you could say I am “a” (maybe “the”) principal creator of the Sunset
Scoring System.
I was (and still am) convinced that the absolute fairest system would be
to compare the actual points a boats scored for the season (Actual) to
the total she would have scored had she won every race (Best). [You
could divide Best by Actual to get a percentile-type ranking.] The
problem is that such a system is difficult to understand and hard for
competitors to know where they stand. Gregg Bemis has such a system in
his book.
My twist was to calculate a percentile ranking for each race rather than
once at the end of the season. That compromises a small part of the
fairness but makes the system much simpler and easier to understand.
If you read through the thread I linked to in my prior message you’ll
see a good discussion of the various PROs and CONs.
Both Rinderle B and CHIPS have a bias based on class size. Rinderle B
favors boats that do well when there are more competing boats and the
CHIPS system favors boats that do well when there are fewer competing
boats. The Sunset Scoring System was intentionally designed to have no
bias based on the number of boats sailing in a race. It has been my
personal experience (in our area) that the number of competing boats is
no indication of average skill level and so any system that favors boats
racing in large or small classes would be inappropriate. That might not
be true everywhere and so you might want a system the gives greater
weight to races when there are more boats or when there are fewer boats.
Gregg Bemis points out some other important concerns. For a boat that
does well in the beginning of a series, any system with a strict
percentile ranking of all races can have the effect of discouraging that
boat from coming out toward the end of the series since their percentile
ranking could go down. We handled that by having discards, so you can
always improve your score by coming out and doing better than your worst
score. Also, discards are important for a summer series where owners or
crew might be on vacation.
I’m happy to discuss further but I would suggest reading through the
thread I gave the link for in my prior message. I think the postings in
that thread highlight many of the important issues.
Let me sign off with a funny story. When our comm. met to come up with a
revised scoring system for our Sunset Series a UCLA professor of
statistics came to one of our meetings. He argued that DNC or DSQ or OCS
boats should get average points - in other words, you start at average
and then based on your result you go up or down. Needless to say, that
view didn’t get any support since that meant that half the boats could
improve their typical result by staying ashore! The lesson I learned was
that it isn’t all about statistical analysis; some of the CHIPS stuff
looks far too mathematical and/or statistical for me (even though I
started out college as a mathematics major!).
Good sailing,
Art
Art thank you for the Sunset Scoring System history lesson. And thank you for pointing to other resources. I do have a copy of Yacht Race Scoring by Gregg Bemis. I enjoy reading about the many scoring systems of years gone by. One of my favorites is the Reciprocal Plus 9 scoring system.
I’ll share a copy of the Scorekeepers’ Handbook whenever is gets finished, I have been working on it for over two years…
Jerry
Hello, In reading this thread does anyone have more information regarding the “Austrian High Point Scoring Systems”
thank you
chris
I have the Greg Bemis book but don’t need it if anybody wants it. Email me your snail-mail address. colin@sailwave.com.