The Handicap Awards

David West

There has long been a view in the fleet that some Squib numbers are less desirable than others. In brief, it has often been assumed that the 'best' numbers are up to about 160 and that new Parker Squibs are the next best thing. Thus, our 6 times national champions sail 136 while the runners-up sail 800.

It has always been Salty's view that just about any Squib can be made competitive and the view that some boats seem less so may be a self-fulfilling prophecy - people seeking greater performance being more likely to get hold of an old boat or go to Parkers in view of the common assumption.

However, the point of this article is not to argue the case but to look at individual performances on the assumption that some Squibs are indeed inherently faster than others. On this assumption, we can 'award' some handicap 'prizes' for those crews whose performance was outstanding - considering they may have been sailing a slower boat.

The results

Here is a graph of the results at the RVYC 2006 Nationals, plotting boat number against final position.

 

The vertical axis (0-90) shows finishing position while the horizontal axis shows boat number.

The hypothesis

The hypothesis that some Squibs are slower would require a u-shaped curve in the plots, like this:

 

While there does seem to be some rough and ready correlation here, it is far from clear. What spoils the correlation is a group of boats in the middle of the graph - as emphasised in the next graph.

The 'problem'

 

According to the hypothesis, this group should not exist. These middle number boats should not be so prominent in the results and if these plots were removed, the U-shaped correlation would be far more clear.

Investigation

Let's take a look at this group.

 

Some of them, shown in yellow, turn out to be RVYC boats. Everyone who attended the Royal Vic Nationals was soon aware that the tidal flows and the wind shifts were very tricky and very difficult to predict. Both needed either local knowledge or great skill (or both.) The Royal Vic boats can be assumed to have this local knowledge as they sail these waters far more frequently than anyone else.

Abstracting the Royal Vic boats (which may be totally unfair), leaves us with six boats (dark red plots) whose performance is not accounted for by inherent boat speed or local knowledge. These are crews who have simply overcome the handicap of what might be a slower boat number.

The handicap winners

While we should celebrate the Hogans, Salty and Gerard, Dave Best, the worthy editor of this magazine and others, let us also give a very honourable mention to those who seem to have exhibited great skill without the benefit of an inherently fast boat. All hail, therefore to our handicap winners - in order of finishing:

473	Greenfly	William Bibby	Nicky Bibby	R.Anglesey
662	Ember	David East	Christopher Edwards	Waldringfield
636	Squiffy	John Barton	Peter Rolfe	West Hoe
544	Brigand	Kit Noble	Jim Prower	Royal Dart
510	No Wonder	Edward Tolliday	Katherine Tolliday	Royal Dart
519	Blue Peter	Peter Read	Glyn Humphreys-Jones	R.Anglesey

with an honourable mention to:

380

Mint Sauce

Jane Paull

Timothy Paull

Hamble River

who may actually have some local knowledge given that they sail just around the corner.

I award the Handicap 'Prize' to William and Nicky, the Ladies 'Prize' to Katherine and the Lady Helm 'Prize' to Jane. (It would be appropriate if the 'Prize' turned out to be a new Parker Squib but that seems unlikely!)

Let's hear some applause.