Can you use NHC1 with Yardstick?
Hi Mike,
Apologies, I’ve been suffering with the Flu and still am to a degree but to answer your question
Yes - although as NHC is specified as an algorithm based on TCF Time correction Format then for it to work and you to use VYC the ratings have to be converted to TCF and then back again to VYC this can be done by the program directly
Have a play with it using the external/debug mode.
Have a play and try it out
The Rating convert option is on by default.
This definitely converts PY to TCF and back and I think although its is a few years since I wrote that, that it will also convert VYC
If it doesn’t convert the VYC all you need to do is
Make a copy first of the SWNHC3.xls sheet and then rename it and you can modify it to your wishes
Turn off the RatingConvert and then do the conversion in the main sheet
Let me know how you get on
Regards
Jon
For those of us not familiar with the abbreviations used, can you
explain further?
I thought PY stood for Portsmouth Yardstick, which uses a time on time
type of scoring formula. Calculating a TCF (Time Correction Factor) to
be used in the formula Corrected_Time = Elapsed_Time * TCF should be
very easy and if Sailwave automates that so much the better. You would
apply standard arithmetic and there are no conversion factors to consider.
A Google search reveals that “VYC” ratings are ToD (Time on Distance)
ratings issued by Vallarta Yacht Club in Vallarta, Mexico. They are
essentially PHRF-type ratings issued by the club rather than some
organization actually associated with PHRF. Or, perhaps Google has led
me astray.
Converting from ToD ratings to TCF ratings requires a conversion formula
and there is a fair amount of opinion on how that conversion should be
done. The mathematics is trivial but the principles that decide which
conversion factors to use in the formula definitely are NOT trivial. You
have to decide what conversion factors to apply and that depends on the
wind-strength for which the ToD ratings were issued and that can be
somewhat controversial, as although the impact on results is not usually
great it can be significant.
Jon – You were going to look into adding the ability for the course
distance to be exported from Sailwave to the external Excel spreadsheet
so the NHC (National Handicap for Cruisers) algorithm could be applied
directly to race results to come up with new ratings. A user from
Ventura in Southern California was interested in using the NHC external
spreadsheet to automate generating new ratings (possibly using the
standard NHC system but maybe not) and I offered to help but we need the
ability to import the course distance for each race into the spreadsheet.
Happy New Year all,
Art
Hi Art,
TCF, PY and VYC are all really time-correction ratings
They just express the rating as a different value
You can convert between them using the appropriate maths
a TCF of 1.000 is the same as a PY of 1000 and a VYC of 100.
OK, there are some considerations to be made such as the rounding when converting but generally for the accuracy required in NHC this should not be an issue.
I’ve not forgotten about the making of the race distance available and I’m sure I can do it but its not straightforward as different starts in the same race can do different distances.
I’ve just had 3 overseas trips to score international events and my day job has been unusually busy as well. Then Christmas got in the way and I’ve spent a week in bed with the Flu.
Still have lots of work on
I didn’t hear any detail back on the sample sheet I created for you to help out Dave with the IF - did this all work for you?
Regards
Jon
Jon Eskdale
03333 443377
07530 112233
Hi Art,
FYI
In Sailwave VYC stands for Victoria Yardstick which is now known as ASC (Australian Sailing) as the Australian Yachting Federation have taken over administration from the Victorian state sailing authority. It is a change that still has to be made in Sailwave.
ASC/VYA where/are based on the RYA PY scheme but did not change the scale to be based on 1000 when the RYA changed from 100 base.
I had not heard of VYC from Vallarta Yacht Club before. When I typed ‘VYC rating system’ into Google I got Yachting Victoria Yardstick and Australian Sailing Yardstick as top results. For my education could you please let me know what you used in your Google search?
Kind regards,
Huw
Huw - I searched for “VYC ratings” and got a lot of irrelevant stuff,
the first that seemed to be what I was looking for was an application
for VYC Handicaps from the Vallarta Yacht Club. I seem to remember doing
other searches that came up with the Australian Yachting Federation but
none of their materials had any reference to “VYC” anywhere so i figured
it wasn’t the right thing. I think I did see reference to YV ratings,
being Yardstick Victoria ratings, from 10 years ago. The Vallarta Yacht
Club stuff was much more current. Just goes to show that Google isn’t
always the answer since you need to know enough to search with the right
terms. If I’d known Yardstick Victoria handicaps were sometimes called
VYC ratings I’d have been able to interpret the search results I was
getting.
Jon - I must admit that I never looked at your demo. Before asking
questions I had downloaded the standard NHC materials and scored a few
races using the external Excel spreadsheet so I didn’t think I’d learn
anything new by doing it another time. The material was confusing at
first but once I’d blundered my way through it a couple of times it made
sense. I find Sailwave powerful and able to be customized but the user
interface is not intuitive - Sailwave is clear once you know how it
works but getting to know how it works takes some time and effort. I’ve
experienced some resistance to local usage because of that. The two
alternatives I see used a lot (Regatta Network and Regatta Management,
which are primarily entry systems but also do scoring) have the same
problem: not intuitive to figure out how to use but fairly
straight-forward once you have used them a few times and learned their
quirks.
Regards,
Art
Hi Art,
My experience with users of Sailwave is that they find the general operation of Sailwave very intuitive. The difficult part really comes when the scoring situations are not straightforward or have complexities such as personal handicaps
There really is no other scoring software that allows personal handicapping to be user-defined so if you which to use this then yes it’s going to take a little learning curve.
The demo I wrote especially for you as you requested how to get the data into the spreadsheet as you were going to help Dave with some conditional functions in the handicapping as I understand.
The Demo is not a personal handicapping sheet - so you can’t use it for generating personal handicaps in its own right - it is to demonstrate the principle of how it works and allow you to create your own non-NHC system
Regards
Jon
Jon,
I think I didn’t understand.
Does the DEMO explain how to use NHC? I had that figured out and didn’t
think I needed help.
Or, does the DEMO explain how to import the course distance for each
boat (which doesn’t seem to be done automatically)? That is where I was
having a problem as it appeared I would have to do it manually for each
boat for each race.
I don’t know if Dave ever attempted to use the NHC external mode like I
did. If not then perhaps the DEMO would help him. It certainly could
help others.
Regards,
Art
Hi Art,
The Demo was neither of these, the Demo was how to create your own personal rating system.
It is a bare template that you can write your own rules in to create your own rating system
It demonstrates how the information gets into an Excel sheet from Sailwaveand how it returns to Sailwave.
Unless I misunderstood that is what you asked for so that you could assist Dave to create his own cusom rating system.
Regards
Jon