I need a crash course in the handicap systems. They are designed to compare two different boats on a "time over distance" basis, correct?
In gathering the data from a bouy race, they would need the elapsed time the boats finished as well as the length of the course, right?
And if it's a one design fleet, this information is not usually kept (only finish position), which tends to screw up calculations?
It seems so simple in theory, but those earlier posts are way too complicated. Are they crunching all those numbers to determine a provisional rating rather than a compliation of historical data?
All of the systems being discussed are "time on time" so no course length data is needed.
Data gathering and processing is the major flaw with PH. Scoring once numbers are established is relatively easy.
The problem, as it stands is that good data is hard to get. Every race has situations that skew data...wind shifts, pressure holes, bad starts, 360 turns, wind shadows, etc. that are uncompensated.
If there was an oversite committee as part of the PH system, then perhaps some of this could be filtered out. I believe a trusted board of perhaps three people could "fix" the anomalies in either system. That is how PHRF works and yes, there have been abuses it seems.
At some point, you just have to pick good people and trust them. A machine or formula cannot accomplish what the human brain can.
