Race handicap

[PabloPicasso]

I know there are different race handicap systems. Can anyone explain what the numbers mean in terms of corrected time difference on the water.

i.e, Portsmouth Yardstick (PY). Boat A is 0.870, boat B is 0.830. If race is for one hour over 5nm then how much will A have to beat B by to equal it on corrected time?

What are the most widely used handicap systems for around the cans club racing?

Many thanks

 

[coopec]

If you do a google on "racing handicap Portsmouth Yardstick corrected times" you'll get a link to a 4 page PDF publication that appears to answer your query.

I'm not into racing but I get annoyed when handicap systems that encourage un-seaworthy boats that are ready for the scrapyard once they are no longer competitive. Sadly yachts like Ondine, Stormvogel, Sovereign and Kialoa are from a by-gone era but I think are still sailing.

Clive

 

[yoda]

I know there are different race handicap systems. Can anyone explain what the numbers mean in terms of corrected time difference on the water.

i.e, Portsmouth Yardstick (PY). Boat A is 0.870, boat B is 0.830. If race is for one hour over 5nm then how much will A have to beat B by to equal it on corrected time?

What are the most widely used handicap systems for around the cans club racing?

Many thanks

Handicaps such as HNC (National Handicap for Cruisers) give each boat a time correction factor which you use to multiply by elapsed time to give a corrected time - lowest time wins. The numbers therefore range (in general) between about .7 and 1.1 Because it is a handicap the number for a particular boat can change from race to race or series to series to reflect how well (or badly) that boat has done.

Rating systems work on the same principle for corrected time but because they are calculated based on measurement of boat criteria they only change when you change parts of the boat like sail area etc. IRC is the most common one in the UK.

Regards Yoda

 

[ShinyShoe]

Since you specifically ask about PY I will answer that specific example you gave. Once you have a rating system AFAIK they all work the same maths on the score board...

i.e, Portsmouth Yardstick (PY). Boat A is 0.870, boat B is 0.830. If race is for one hour over 5nm then how much will A have to beat B by to equal it on corrected time?

OK Firstly - those are VERY ODD PY numbers. Modern PY numbers are integers on a base of 1000 so 870 and 830 would be normal numbers for a fast boat, they used to be on a base of 100 so the same boat would have been 87, 83... not sure where your 0.870 comes from. But the maths works all the same.

Different people do the calculation in different ways but it will pick the same winner etc. The "officially" listed way of reporting a PY corrected is to take:

Elapsed Time * Scale / Rating = Corrected Time (CT)

Scale = 1000 (if your maths is any good you will realise that doesn't need to be used each time it just means the CT's will be on a different scale.)

So in your example Boat A has a CT of 68.966minutes, For boat B to beat that they needed to finish the race in 57.24minutes on the water. (2.73minutes quicker [2min 43.8sec] ). At 5knots thats 0.23nm of seperation - roughly 400metres. (N.B. There are some rounding inaccuracies here!)

Some people will not quote CTs like that. Instead they pick the fastest boat on the water and quote all the times relative to that. So assuming boat B actually did 58 minutes his CT is also quoted as 58mins, and boat A's is quoted as (0.83/0.87 * 60) = 57.2mins i.e. Sailor B would have been expected to finish the race in 57.2 minutes if he'd sailed Sailor A's boat...

What are the most widely used handicap systems for around the cans club racing?

PY as mentioned by yourself tends to be for small boats. Dinghies and smaller keelboats. Pretty much the UK Standard for dinghy racing on handicap.

Handicaps such as HNC (National Handicap for Cruisers) give each boat a time correction factor which you use to multiply by elapsed time to give a corrected time - lowest time wins.

See - told you other people do the maths differently to get the same result that matters - place on the water!

Rating systems work on the same principle for corrected time but because they are calculated based on measurement of boat criteria they only change when you change parts of the boat like sail area etc. IRC is the most common one in the UK.

Actually PY doesn't use a set of measurements it uses national average data gathered over years. Clubs are supposed to apply local adjustments but few do. In the UK Dinghy world over the last few years there has been increasing (but still not vast) use of personal handicapping in addition to PY handicapping. This is akin to golf - so you start the season with your handicap from last season (or your official PY number) and as the series progresses your PY is adjusted so that if you won the first say 4 races your PY goes down by a factor and if you came last the first 4 it goes up by a similar factor. This means the odds of winning are much narrower rather than the same expert sailor winning all the time, and it makes the expert work even harder to get their win.