Is there anything wrong in principle?

[mrming]

We do club racing and regattas on the East coast.

Most of our racing is NHC, especially for smaller boats like ours.

A few of us smaller boats also have IRC certs, but often there's not enough out at any one time to make dual scoring worthwhile.

One of our biggest gripes with NHC is the base numbers. Many of our fleet have been modified in some way over the years, some with larger rigs etc, making the base number a bit of a nonsense.

So here's my suggestion for how to fix this. Let boats who have a valid IRC cert (and who promise to sail under the configuration they are rated for) use their IRC number as their NHC base number.

Can anyone see a problem with that? I understand RORC runs IRC and the RYA run NHC, but political reasons aside, is there any practical reason it wouldn't work?

 

[lw395]

Because nhc adjusts all the numbers, of every boat, a fair base number depends on the other boats in the fleet.
Whether it would 'work' depends on what you are trying to achieve.
How long a series are you prepared to allow for the numbers to work?
Who do you want to win?
Best sailors?
Most consistent sailors?
Most improved sailors?
Best boat?
how do you measure the success of a series? Happy racers? The 'right' people winning? numbers on the water?

As ever, the real issue may be that a single rating number is not effective for disparate boats over a range of wind strengths and courses.

 

[mrming]

A big problem we have is that NHC is very series oriented, but we find it hard to get the same boats out for a whole series. People on a base number that's either too high or too low don't really ever adjust properly.

Also in events like our 3 day regatta the inaccurate base numbers just mean strange results. This year the 2nd place boat in our class didn't fly a kite.

In terms of who should win, I understand that NHC rewards improvement and that is fine, it just would be nice to give people the option to start from a fairer base.

 

[Birdseye]

Not a good idea to mix handicaps like that because they are based on different vpp programs that take different things into account. Instead I would suggest you use the nhc numbers but then adjust the using the old py corrections for things like no spinny, twin keels etc. Then finally dont revert to base after each series, just contnue with the same number. You will still get a problem with newcomers but there really is no way round that.

Use something like Hals race results program to alter handicaps race to race and you will find the correcyed times getting tighter and tighter

 

[apward]

Q: Is there anything wrong in principle?
A: NHC

 

[lpdsn]

I thought NHC was an attempt to copy ECHO, and as I understand it ECHO uses typical IRCs for a design as the base number.

Not much you can do about the regattas, as ECHO suffers the same problem where someone who hasn't raced recently comes in with a much lower handicap than those who have been racing regularly and improving.

I don't see why you can't make up your own rules and call it Modified NHC. If you find the IRC boats are doing too well under your Modified NHC (they should really be winning as presumably they take the sailing a bit more seriously) adjust the fiddle factor until you start getting what look like fairer results

 

[Birdseye]

NHC is based on a simpler type of vpp than IRC and uses archive data because it cover s a much wider range of boats than IRC. As for fiddle factors just use one of the handicap adjustment programme like hals ( free to download) and they will do the fiddling for you and avoid accusations of bias. If then you don't revert to base after each series you will have closer racing.