so come on boys and girls what should your py really be????


as an onlooker it should be (with an upto date boat: which is what all the other development {maybe not the very very latest design/mod but recent development} classes go off of!) about 990!?????

Merlins are represented at every major handicap race, e.g. Bloody Mary, Tiger Throphy, as well as race in many handicap races around the country. The numbers get submitted by the clubs and the PY's get adjusted every year or so. Additionally local clubs can adjust the PY when boats have an advantage, e.g. winward/leeward course favours symetric, trapeezoid(?) favours asymetric. Shoreham adjusted the Merlin PY to 1000 for their Easter regatta last year. A Wayfarer beat us into 7th.

Merlins don't win every race! If you check the results carefully you will see a massive range of results. Merlins reward VERY GOOD sailors, by going very well, but they punish the smallest mistake. Make a bad tack or have a setting slightly wrong and you can find yourself 100's of yards behind very quickly.

Merlins are favoured by top yotters, so you see lots of class acts in Merlins. People aspire to Merlins, e.g. I moved to a Merlin 4 years ago after getting bored winning every club race in my GP14, to be at the back of the fleet and 4 years later working my way up to the back of the middle.

How can you sleep being so jealous of top sailors in a top boat?

Why should it be 990?

Is the Merlin the only class that has developed? What of the Phantom? The GP14? Fireball? What about all the other supposedly one designs whose fleets have been cut in half by new developments but those who sail Enterprises are still waiting for the balance to be redressed on?

In fact apart from minor hull changes and a change in the way the kite is measured the Merlin is pretty much as it has been for about 8 years.

Putting a Merlin on 990 is nothing short of ridiculous on a normal couse in normal conditions. I'd say Shorham's 1000 is also more representative of crew skill than it is actual boatspeed.

Crazy Fool, only a goddamn crazy fool would suggest that a boat that doesn't plane upwind should sail off 990.

Goddamn howlin mad crazy fool

I Ain't gettin' on no plane fool

I think the reason Shoreham's handicap was changed, was in part the fact that many (most?) of their club sailors who don't sail Merlins aren't that great.  So a kind of inverse handicap to try and produce parity.  Ross still wins everything though!

And perhaps most to the point, what on earth is it to do with the sailors? They have nothing to do with the handicap...

It is "important" to realise handicap racing is but a poor substitute for level racing.

My club mostly sails GP14 and Ents (one Ent sailor just came 7th in the worlds).
My problem was that I find both classes so boring and ugly to look at!! so I got a mature Merlin.
I am still learning to sail her and usualy finish mid fleet in handicap and pursuit races, I am much happier sailing a classic boat poorly than following the crowd. And before the GP14 mob start If I wanted a 14foot family boat that can take an outboard I would get a Topper Magno!

topper magno, topper magno, topper magno, topper magnzzzzzzzzzz

start counting them, you'll drop off in no time!

Ernest, not all of us have the benefit of class racing so handicap club racing i'm affraid is all we have, i'm not grumbling about the handicap.  If people dont like it because Merlins in some cases win races, then why dont the sell mass produced rs's and such like and buy a Merlin great boat, great looking, very rewarding and there are plenty on the forsale section,

Charlie640, have you got any hard facts on which to base your claim?  Have you analysed several years worth of race result data representing a wide variety of venues and conditions?  No?  So bearing in mind the somewhat provocative title of your post and the lack of anything to substantiate your claim, what are you expecting in terms of replies?   

One of the things to note about the Merlin class is that the MROA association has been running very popular and highly effective training events for a number of years.  This has had the result that the general standard across the fleet is now very high.  

Plenty of other classes can and do win handicap events against Merlins, but given the strength of our fleet and the fact that the boat does perform well in all conditions, rather than needing the "right" wind strength or downwind angle, is it any surprise to regularly find Merlins at or near the front on handicap?  

Why don't you come and try racing a Merlin Rocket and see whether you can clean up on handicap?  I'm willing to bet you'll find it a lot tougher than you think!  However, you'll also find that the Merlin is a superb boat to sail and what a competitive and friendly fleet we have.  Go on, do something positive rather than moaning about PYs - accept the system has its flaws, so why not come and race a class which offers lots of close and exciting fleet racing.

Charlie, if all you can think of when you go to bed each night is PN numbers you've far more of a problem than just an umcompetitive handicap!

He asked how we sleep at night not that he cant sleep through thinking of PN's

BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING, BORING & MORE BORING ...... GOOD NIGHT, OFF TO BED!

Oh now ladies put your bags away please we dont want you getting upset now do we.

MOGADON, Zopiclone or some other hypnotic drug!

Use of the search facility on this forum will show you how many times in the past we have discussed this. Perhaps the most pertinent point made above is that the MROA do not set the PY, the RYA do. So...why are you asking us?

True, the RYA set the PN, but I don't see anything wrong with raising the issue; this is a discussion forum after all. No-one can say a Merlin doesn't have a good handicap. 
I sail a Fireball and the handicap is an absolute GIFT!! There, I said it; now it's your turn!

have you ever sailed against an Epoxy Phantom - now there is a boat with a good handicap !!

At Starcross a couple of years ago we had a few moans from the hornets, Rs400s etc about the Merlin handicap. Dave Lee did a bit of jiggery pokery with sailwave using results from the last 12 months and the Merlin h/cap needed to be adjusted....
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to 1100!!!!

A lot depends on what type of water you sail on.  Should really be a higher PN for restricted waters compared with sea and large reservoirs but I cannot lose a lot of sleep over this as we fleet race at Banbury.

I have to qualify Blackie's comment - the 1100 number was based on results from the entire fleet, which included several old NSM variants.  CSF may also have been a significant factor ;)  

I also ran the same exercise but only counting results for (early) Canterbury Tales or similar, and found the number was actually bang on 1024.  In the last season or two several SYC members have upgraded to Winder CTs or Easy Rollers - I haven't tried crunching the numbers yet, but would guess the number will be a bit lower.

i sailed a gp when they were developing and became considerably quicker so no change to handicap, i now have a phantom good development in last coupe of years little change, but if you cant sail it still wont help so just sail the thing