RORC Seminar

[Kerenza]

NHC is ludicrous and the results are meaningless. The sooner it dies a death the better.

Simplified club handicaps such as those run by ISC or the Royal Southampton work far better but they do require a little more work.

Perhaps so in areas of large participation ( numbers that is , not crew weight) and therein lies the problem with such a disparate sailing community as we see in the British Isles.
This thread has moved a bit towards inclusivity and participation - a challenge for any large organisation.

 

[flaming]

There's no way we can afford the cost of 11 people for a week, so no chance of placing.

On an aside...
I don't get this. Are your crew really expecting you to entirely fund their holiday? Only the really top programs do that in my experience. We as a crew fund our own accommodation and food etc. Bit rich to expect someone to provide both an expensive toy to play on and a free holiday!

 

[Kerenza]

Crew expect very little, but many of them would not be in a position to spend that much time and money.

 

[markhomer]

Ha good un , right enough oops , bloody google and scan reading for you !

9th , 9 th , 9 th ,doh !!!!


Scottish seminar 8 th feb , hosted by ccc , 7.00 pm , will let you know more when i do

 

[Birdseye]

NHC is ludicrous and the results are meaningless. The sooner it dies a death the better.

Simplified club handicaps such as those run by ISC or the Royal Southampton work far better but they do require a little more work.

Did you have indigestion when you wrote this Judders?

Away from the hot spots of the Solent , and even there from what I read, its NHC that is growing albeit slowly and IRC that is declining. The reason is simple - IRC or indeed any fixed handicap like the ones you mention, encourage an arms race. They arent suitable for the cruising sailor in the real world because they demand a stripped out boat, expensive kit and a steady well trained crew. Fine if your dream is the Americas cup but not so it you just mess around in boats at weekends.

And as for meaningless results - well thats just tripe. NHC results over a series reflect improvement which could be kit like IRC but is more likely to be skill because there is no point in throwing money at the results when the handicap will ultimately cancel it out. Getting a bit better sailor each race, or a bit worse as the case might be. To illustrate, on our recent series of 10 races and with a fleet of 22 NHC boats, 4 ended up on exactly the same handicap number they started on, and 12 were within 5% of their start handicap at series end so the start handicaps arent silly numbers and the changes are mostly small. True the winner finished with a handicap 10% tighter than he started with but he is a good sailor and in a boat that the RYA system is generous towards.

In contrast, in our IRC fleet one boat won the series as usual, winning 7 out of 10 races despite mostly finishing some time behind all the other boats. And yes he has been measured . The NHC series winner won 2 out of 10 races. Which series do you think gives people some hope of winning ? Would you want to race in a series where you were a permanent no hoper?

Not everyone wants to race a standard boat like an Impala or Sigma 33. Sure thats the purest form of racing though even there money counts. But get rid of NHC and you would simply cut most current racers out of racing altogether. I cant understand why you would want that.

 

[H4B]

In the typical club situation , what ever that might be , there is only one option if either IRC or NHC are to be used and that is to dual score every race and series within the club. In our experience the same boats are at the top of the order under each scoring system but there are differences further down the order. What troubles me most with NHC and can be difficult for the better crew to understand is that the harder the boat tries the more difficult it becomes to stay at the top. More frustratingly RYA are not putting any resource into ensuring that the scheme is developing satisfactorily.

 

[H4B]

Attended the event at Royal Temple last night. Nothing really new . The RYA chap lost me when he suggested that races( run under NHC) should effectively be fixed so that any first time racer that happens to turn up wins the race. Is that nonsense ?

 

[Kerenza]

sounds like twaddle to me! how could you fix it except by changing the starting handicap?
and on the subject of NHC handicaps,
For the 2015 season onwards the automatic handicap adjustment was extended to include boats which had finished a race but didnt take part in a subsequent one.
The most common effect is the dormant boat gets a slowly improving (ie reducing) handicap number which it carries on to start the next series.

Great reward for not taking part.

 

[H4B]

The suggestion was that the newbies boat base number would be ' doctored' to such an extent that he couldn't lose! , but that it was all done to encourage new boats into racing. In my opinion it suggests the whole scheme is just a bit of a joke and undermines it as an alternative to those racers and clubs that believe it has value in their activities.