SailWave RYA NHC concerns at RLymYC

Hi Richard,

I have had a look at your file. It all looks to be set up fine.

Working through the calculations I can’t see any problem with the Sailwave software in its calculations - It appears to be working to the RYA specification for NHC2014, I do agree with you that in race 6 I would not expect their rating to change in the direction that it did. I appears to be a combination of 2 things which is causing it.

a) In this race they (the first 2) are classified as an extreme performer and therefore their rating doesn’t get adjusted by such a large amount

b) The realignment is adjusting it by a relatively large amount.

Before the realignment the change had been in the correct direction.

In my opinion (I’m very happy to discuss or be proved wrong - The full calculations are available via the external spreadsheets if anyone wishes to investigate) this is a result of the RYA NHC2014 specification. There is a new specification for 2015 but this had a known issue with some extreme performers also adjusting in the wrong direction, and I have been waiting for this specification to be rectified officially together with some samples to prove the workings against before releasing it within Sailwave.

I would like the comments of the RYA

Jon

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Jon Eskdale

03333 443377

07976 709777

On 29 June 2015 at 20:15, RichardTruscott@aol.com wrote:

Hi Jon

I believe that you have had communication with both Kirsty at the Royal Lymington YC and Alastair at the Lymington Town SC regarding both club’s usage of the RYA NHC software embedded in the SailWave program.

We at the Royal Lymington have started using it for this year’s racing and have just completed our Thursday Evening Early Series. This consisted of about 124 boats in 7 classes but it is the 3 club handicap classes consisting of some 59 boats and which use the RYA NHC software that we are concerned about here. These are designated LAH2, LAH3 and LAH4 in the attached Sailwave program.

With so many boats out on the water the only realistic way of inputting results quickly enough to announce results later that evening is to analyse all the classes together in one SailWave program with each class separated out. It is not realistic to run individual SailWave programs for each of the three club handicap classes.

Our understanding was that this was not a problem as the SailWave program could be set up to operate the different classes individually whether they be IRC, TCF or NHC.

An analysis of the results has however show up some strange results, whereby a boat that has come first or second does, in some cases see its handicap reduced for the next race whereas in most cases, and as logic would suggest, their handicap should increase.

For example, in the attached Sailwave program, the following boats saw a reduction in their handicap for their next race despite coming 1st or 2nd:

LAH class 2

‘Hound Dog’ 1st in race 6

‘Strega’ 2nd in race 6

LAH class 3

‘Pathogem’ 1st in race 3

‘Seascape’ 1st in race 7

‘Pallas Athene’ 2nd in race 3

‘Tokoloshe’ 2nd in race 6

‘Unity’ 2nd in race 7

Lymington Town SC report similar anomalies in the use of the RYA NHC software embedded in SailWave for their Solent Circuit last autumn.

We have been setting up the SailWave program for these events in line with your advice so, assuming the RYA NHC system is not meant to act in this way, either we have misinterpreted your advice or there is a bug in SailWave or in the RYA NHC software.

As the outgoing handicaps from the overall series seem sensible in that the leading boats are seeing increases in their handicaps for the next series and the back markers are seeing reductions, we will be carrying on with the software for our Thursday evening Late Series. However, we would appreciate some feedback, advice and/or an upgrade if necessary in the SailWave software.

Kind regards

Richard Truscott

Captain, Cruiser Racing, RLymYC