[hazelnut]

Originally Posted by Evenstar

I “get the math” just fine – and I seriously doubt that you understand this better than I do.

Have you recently (or ever) taken a college level course in Research Methodology? Have you ever done statistical analysis on the data from a municipal survey (that you helped design, and spent time collecting the data on), to aid a town in putting together their comprehensive plan? So don’t be so quick to dismiss me as someone who does not know what she is doing. The problem is that you are still looking at the data wrong – and you are still not getting my conclusions.

And you did post:
Which is inferring “that there were somehow 770,400 boats floating on Lake Winnipesaukee.”


My chance of encountering a high-speed boat is way higher than what the static snapshot and you calculations suggest – because all the boats are moving – and what I didn’t factor in (and could have) were the boat speeds.

For instance, a boat traveling at 50 mph uses (or covers) 10 times more of the lake than I do in my kayak at 5 mph – during the same time period that we are both on the lake. So the faster that a boat is traveling, the more likely it is that I will encounter that boat on the lake – the percentages increase directly as the speed increases. The lake is roughly 20 miles long, so if I paddle from one end to the other it will take me about 4 hours. In that 4 hours a boat that is covering the same 20 mile stretch of lake at 50 mph will pass me 10 times.

This represents 10 high-speed encounters in just a 4-hour period of time, with just 2 boats on the lake (who happen to be using the same 20 mile stretch of the lake). Those 11 weeks equal 770 daylight hours. Therefore my chances of encounter a high-speed boat are considerable – which is what my actual experience paddling on the lake has been.


As far as your points 1 through 4: I clearly stated that my analysis only covers the 11 weeks of the study – that’s what the 770 hours represent.
I also clearly stated: “If the study was done correctly and the “snapshot” was an accurate representation of the speeds of boats on the lake, than my statistical analysis is just as accurate.” My conclusion is and has always been that this study was not done correctly – and that data which was collected is flawed. And once anyone takes the data and tries to do statistical analysis on it they get some really strange results.

The problem is that the data collected does not accurately represent the average boat traffic on the entire lake over the entire 11 week period. The MP purposely used areas of the lake where boat traffic was high in order to record a large number of readings over a relatively short period of time. In 135 hours, they RECORDED the speeds of 3852 power boats – that’s more than 28 boats per hour or 1 every 2 minutes! And this is just the boats that they were able to record, not the total number of boats that went by them.

My contention is that, by using the busiest areas of the lake for the study, the study did not represent the average condition on the entire lake. Boats are going to travel at slower speeds in areas where the boat traffic is high.


There is nothing wrong with my approach – that is exactly how statistical analysis is done. But (and this is a really important but) any statistical analysis is only as good as the data that was collected.

The speed study is being used as “proof” that few boats on the lake are traveling at speeds over 45 mph – so there’s no reason to enact a speed limit. What it actually shows is that on areas of the lake where boat traffic is the highest, there are only a small percentage of boats that are traveling over 50 mph on the busiest times of the highest boat traffic days.

Had the study areas actually represented the average conditions on the lake, on an average day during these 11 weeks, the data collected would have been totally different. And statistical analysis of that data would have given very different results. But then the data may have supported the need for a speed limit - which is why the study was not done correctly.


Yes there is. Even the report is called “RECREATIONAL BOAT SPEED SAMPLING.” A sampling results in raw data that is supposed to accurately represent the overall population/area/time period/condition. Since boats were not recorded over the entire lake, but only in sample areas, the raw data needs to be adjusted to cover the entire lake. And since the data was collected only during less than 2% of the total daylight hours of these 11 weeks last summer – the total hours need to be factored in as well. This is what statistical analysis does.

I see the forum sharks are still circling. I'm sooo impressed . . . it takes . . . let's see . . . 5 of you guys (at this point) to debate (or to try to intimidate) just one college girl.

Seriously though? You are still defending your math? I weep for the college graduates of this era. Evanstar you really need to take your head out of the book. There are many forum members who are MUCH smarter and MUCH more educated than you. I know that is difficult for you to comprehend but it is true. Please stop trying to suggest the 1/4 of a million vessels were traveling on the lake in an 11 week period. You are looking sillier and sillier by the day. Notice absolutely nobody on this forum backs up one single claim that you have made.... EVER. Even the staunchest proponents have distanced themselves from you. You have done a wonderful job showing a simple math equation... bravo. The end result is that you are trying to suggest that there were 2,200 violations in an 11 week period. With that (according to percentage) you need to accept that there were 770,000 non offenders. So please I have asked you and I ask again. Do you really think that there were that many craft on the lake during the time frame? Does this need to continue? This is getting silly. Please stop.