Information sheet to explain the new BFSLYC League Tables
At the beginning of the season when Steve Borrill sent me the spreadsheets/procedures/formulas used to create the BFSLYC League Tables he describe them as being: ‘Written last century by a person or persons unknown and that they would need a little manual support to complete them.’ Well I found his comment to be an understatement, with the documents being unfit for purpose. Perhaps transferring the information to yet another computer was just one move too far for the fragile and unstable programme.
I therefore decided to enlist the help of my daughter Sam, to design a new spreadsheet. So please find attached the new spreadsheets, which are close to being in their final version just requiring some minor tweaks. Thanks to Sam for her patience working with me during this proceed and also thanks to Keith Ecroyd and Chris Wright who examined a draft version which enabled us to create the spreadsheet being distributed today.
The format of new spreadsheet are similar but not identical to previous ones:
The dates, ie the month and year of each competition has been added.
The ‘discard columns’ have been omitted because they are unnecessary and this frees up space for the other columns. The initial instructions from Steve stated, ‘The British Championship is based on the 4 best results’ whilst, ‘The President’s Cup is based on all events without any discards’. The first 6 pilots in the Miniyacht table have each completed 5 events therefore their best 4 events to date have been highlighted and the remaining 4 events have been discarded. One of the tweaks needed is for pilots who have completed less than 4 events to have only their best 4 highlighted; the maths is correct for them but not the highlighting.
The other major change is that the ‘Team Selection’ column has been removed, again because it is unnecessary. In the last 20 years the teams have included anyone wanting to represent Great Britain who is competent to sail in an international event without the need to choose the best ‘x’ in the table. Team selection is based on a pilot’s best 4 events all of which must be on sand. If we ever get back to a competitive situation for team selection the committee responsible for selection could easily make a decision based on the British Championship table with some adjustment for no airfield events.
Martin Leach 5th May 2023