We do the same as Jim. Just change the race rating for whatever boat was sailed. As Jim says it causes a few headaches prior to uploading to PYS as you have to take those results out and create a new line for them. I asked the PYS guys about a means to sort this in PYS but it's not happened and to be honest it could be tricky to do. Certainly for clubs like ours where results are given by helm it would really help.
When uploading results to the RYA it makes no difference what PN you have allocated the boat - the site works out a ‘back calculated rating’ for itself. BUT you cannot upload different versions of the Laser as the same boat, you would have to make a copy of your results and put your entrant in as a Laser 4.7 or a Radial (if that was what he was using) before submitting. Similarly, if a boat sails (for example) without a spinnaker, it must be noted in the dialogue box provided. There are other gotchas - there must be a space between GP and 14 and between RS and 400. There is, of course, no reason why competitors should not use a reduced rig if they want to, but you will confuse the system if the results are uploaded. And now - there are four Mirrors, two sailed singlehanded, and one of each is being sailed without a Spinnaker. How would you upload the results?
rgds
George Morris
At your club level you seem to want to ‘score by competitor’, rather than the traditional ‘score by boat’ approach? You (now) seem aware of all the difficulties that presents though, when competitors change boat or configuration mid-series.
Easy (!) answer is to make it clear to competitors that it is the ‘boat’ that is entered to race, and that changing rigs changes the boat class (especially with the Laser variants) and creates a new entry. Which also simplifies the RYA PY return 
Otherwise you are somewhat on your own, although Sailwave offers some tools to help with the club problem, but not a ‘score by competitor (helm)’ as far as I know (which isn’t all that far).
Appologies for being of little help.
Happy New Year
Mike
Lancing SC
I kind of second what Mike said (except not sure about RYA). To provide
a bit further insight: The rulebook provides that what is entered into a
race or series is a boat; it is entered by a person who must meet
certain qualifications. [RRS 75.1] Thus, under the rulebook the "thing"
to be scored is a boat since that is what has been entered, not a
competitor (who merely sails on the boat, although some classes restrict
who can be a competitor on a boat once it has been entered). [See e.g.,
RRS 90.3, A2 & A4, which all refer to "a boat's score."] Of course, your
NOR and SIs can change that. I believe Sailwave can handle both
situations, although obviously it has been optimized for the rulebook
default.
As to changing the configuration of a "boat," I think RRS 78.1 implies
that a boat can have only one configuration she must comply with and a
new configuration would generally be considered a second boat. But, that
would only matter if you are using the default scoring to score "by
boat"; if you are scoring "by skipper" instead then I suppose it doesn't
matter whether it is the same boat or a different boat so the issue
would be moot. In that case, whatever you provide in your NOR and SIs
would govern.
In theory, when you score "by skipper" there are a bunch of rules you
are changing - consider RRS 44 which allows "boats," not skippers, to
take penalties, including scoring penalties. But, I think I'd ignore
most of the minor rules and only provide "This changes RRS 90.3 and
Appendix A." As a protest committee, I think I'd be inclined to enforce
the NOR and SIs so long as they are crystal clear, regardless of whether
the "this changes rule X" language is included. However, I'd worry that
such a decision could be overturned on appeal as technically not being
in compliance with the rulebook.
Art
···
On 12/29/2014 11:06 AM, mike.croker@phonecoop.coop [sailwave] wrote:
At your club level you seem to want to 'score by competitor', rather than the traditional 'score by boat' approach? You (now) seem aware of all the difficulties that presents though, when competitors change boat or configuration mid-series.
Easy (!) answer is to make it clear to competitors that it is the 'boat' that is entered to race, and that changing rigs changes the boat class (especially with the Laser variants) and creates a new entry. Which also simplifies the RYA PY return
Otherwise you are somewhat on your own, although Sailwave offers some tools to help with the club problem, but not a 'score by competitor (helm)' as far as I know (which isn't all that far).
Appologies for being of little help.
Happy New Year
Mike
Lancing SC
…of course on the World Match Racing Tour you definitely enter a ‘person’ because you swap boats at half time.
George Morris
In the old days of yachts where the prize went to the owner, and not whichever pleb was steering the boat,which latter might vary over the course of a season long series it made perfect sense to award the prize to the boat [owner]…
In dinghy terms it makes rather less sense, and isn’t what most clubs do.
And if one considers a pool of club owned Lasers (or whatever), which will be sailed by a great many people over the course of a series, with the same person getting different boats each week then its a complete nonsense to score by boat!
I totally agree with yho@devboats . Most clubs which sail dinghies only ( with a number of club owned boats especially) score by the Helm ( and the crew gets a belated acknowledgement ). I expect this will cause a raft of comments from dinghy only clubs who sail on lakes where Yachts are like hen’s teeth.
Regards
Pete
···
From: sailwave@yahoogroups.com [mailto:sailwave@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 30 December 2014 10:39
To: sailwave@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [sailwave] Re: PYS returns to RYA and individual race ratings
In the old days of yachts where the prize went to the owner, and not whichever pleb was steering the boat,which latter might vary over the course of a season long series it made perfect sense to award the prize to the boat [owner]…
In dinghy terms it makes rather less sense, and isn’t what most clubs do.
And if one considers a pool of club owned Lasers (or whatever), which will be sailed by a great many people over the course of a series, with the same person getting different boats each week then its a complete nonsense to score by boat!
I am using the Free version of SPAMfighter.
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Agree that in yacht racing ‘it’s the boat (owner)’, especially as several of the crew may helm at different times in the same race.
IME, at club level ‘it’s the boat class/owner’ combination that is regarded as a series entry; noting that Laser Radial and Laser 4.7 are (effectively) different classes.
I appreciate that some clubs seem to ‘score by helm’: at my local club that has conciously been avoided to prevent those with money buying results by choosing the right boat for the prevailing conditions.
Mike
Lancing SC
I appreciate that some clubs seem to ‘score by helm’: at my local club that has conciously been avoided to
prevent those with money buying results by choosing the right boat for the prevailing conditions.
Every club has to make its own decisions. We take the position that everything which encourages people to compete in series is a good thing. We have a fair few members who sail a two hander when they can and a singlehander when they have to. There’s also at least one who bails out of his RS400 to borrow a club RS200 in stronger winds because his young son is not yet strong enough to manage the bigger kite. Over 70s using a small rig in breeze is another. These are all things that encourage people to get out and means we all have more fun.
In practice we’ve found very few instances of people sailing different boats for competitive advantage, and none that have significantly affected series results. My personal opinion is that should it become a problem it probably ought to be a matter for the handicapper since the handicap for a multiple rig boat would logically be less than that for a boat that uses the same rig all the time.
Jim C