RYA - National Handicap for Cruisers (NHC) new scheme replaces PYS

[onesea]

You're quite right Birdseye, I have been talking direct to RORC myself. They have been actively involved in the NHC discussions because they are seeing a drop off in people applying for IRC ratings and an overall reduction in cruiser racing generally - this is certainly true in our club. By helping set up the NHC they are hoping it will work as a 'feeder system' , as more people take an interest and then move up to IRC.

Only time will tell ....

Must admit I would happily play some IRC races, last year on the local handicap we managed one race. That would be expensive at 130 for the year IRC, if we managed 8 races in the year we could consider we did well, its still not cheap..

I do like the look of this new rating, its the first time my class of boat has been rated fairly although it will not take long for the adjustments to set in

 

[Birdseye]

one sea - I guess that translates as the rating of your boat dropped. No doubt the complainers above found their boat handicaps raised or at least stayed still. Mine rose a bit.

Whats wrong with a Harley?

 

[Piddy]

As we have so many 'unusual' boats, we've just decided to look at using our PY numbers and convert them (reciprocal *1000 to get a 'TCF' number) and then use Sailwave to manipulate the handicaps in our series.

btw the beta version of Sailwave is available to download and use. (it has a couple of bugs but does do the sums right).

The theory being if we are fairly happy with our PY numbers that have been used over a number of seasons, why not use them as the base number rather than the wildly inaccurate ones from the RYA...

Piddy

 

[Birdseye]

Long chat with a guy at the RYA technical office about the new handicap system. It was brought in after they received just 18 club PY returns this year so we have very much got what we deserved. Anyway some interesting points.

1/ it is based on a modified version of the IRC calculation
2/ illogically the decision was taken to leave the initial handicaps fairly rough and so there are no adjustments for spinnaker, keels, engine types let alone fancy sails. The idea is that the handicap adjust fairly quickly to actual performance and the numbers have been back tested on club results to confirm this. That said it took 3 series of 10 races for the numbers to really stabilise.
3/ if you have two race series, you have two handicaps. so Tuesday night is one number and sunday morning is another. your regatta one is a third.
4/ the handicap goes with you year to year - you dont go back to base at the end of the season.
5/ the system is designed to disadvantage grand prix type boats at the expense of pure cruisers. I suspect but am guessing this is to protect the RORC.
6/ seems like a licence for sandbagging to me. whatever you do, dont win by more than 1 second. extra crew role - man with stopwatch and calculator working out when you can croiss the finish line.

 

[Piddy]

Not quite so easy to sandbag as you won't know exactly what your handicap is during a race... Sailwave at least doesn't issue new handicaps...

 

[mrming]

Wow, our club is implementing this for the new season.

The base number for our 21' 7" boat looks pretty punishing:

GK24 0.854
GK29 0.865
First 235 0.878
Super Seal 0.879
Hydro 28 0.891
Impala 0.892
Formula 28 0.895
X-95 0.904
J24 0.905

 

[Birdseye]

Not quite so easy to sandbag as you won't know exactly what your handicap is during a race... Sailwave at least doesn't issue new handicaps...

Are you saying that sailwave expects you to sail a series without knowing who has won each race as time goes on? But apart from anything else, its a doddle to work out the handicaps yourself at home if you have the finishing times. And there would be a lot of mumbling and grumbling if our OOD tried not to publish after each race how everyone had done and what their times were.

But we shall see - its a new world

 

[Piddy]

From what I have seen, it doesn't show you the handicap to be applied for the next race - it may be there but there's quite a lot of new stuff to get to grips with - not ;east of all some glitches in the formula process. It is only a beta version so hopefully will get sorted soon.

Of course it shows what it was for the current and past races but it's not obvious what it will be for the next.

-All good fun

 

[lw395]

This seems to be very badly handled.
There seems to be a lot of confsion over the aim of the system. Is it supposed to generate personal handicaps? Because that is what will happen, if you simply process the results using sailwave to create equal chances of winning.
But what happens if you have say two Impalas? do they both get the same number? If so, the good one will have a number depressed by the performance of the slower one.

There has been a lot of talk about process and little about what we are trying to achieve.

 

[Merlinman67]

I don't think it's a typo that the moody 376 has an unrealistic base number, I think it's a short coming in the Process that has been followed to arrive a Base Numbers.

Having looked at the base numbers there are now a number of anomalies between the performance of different classes in the real world compared with other boats and then the relationship between the boats respective base numbers.

Take a look at the Nichoson 32 which has a base number suggesting it is quicker than a Bolero quarter Tonner. Or the Twister that is now only a couple of minutes slower than a jeaneau Rush which is based on a half tonner.

The Mg spring has also developed a significant jump in performance, and if you want a really good giggle, an Albin Vega is now quicker than a Nicholson 32 and a quarter tonner, And a Sadler 29 bilge Keel is quicker than a Bolero quarter as well.

Whilst I appreciate that the base numbers adjust over time, I can't see how the NHC is going to encourage more people to race when the base numbers for many don't fit with the respective boats performance relative to other boats

Do we think the RYA have got the base numbers wrong somewhere???? If anyone from the RYA reads this forum, their comments would be appreciated.

 

[awol]

This seems to be very badly handled.
There seems to be a lot of confsion over the aim of the system. Is it supposed to generate personal handicaps? Because that is what will happen, if you simply process the results using sailwave to create equal chances of winning.
But what happens if you have say two Impalas? do they both get the same number? If so, the good one will have a number depressed by the performance of the slower one.

There has been a lot of talk about process and little about what we are trying to achieve.

My experience of rolling handicaps is that each boat's handicap is modified by its results so your 2 Impalas would have different handicaps. One could be using the latest hi-tech sails and the other baggy relics but this is handicap racing not OD. If you want to be serious about your racing go one-design or IRC, and may your wallet be deep. The 2 Impalas will certainly needle-race against each other but it will be more like golf where ability is handicapped. Like golf, one's rating against scratch is also a measure and in important races, i.e. not club round-the-cans, it is scratch that you race off.
Racing against a boat that has a bandit handicap or an ace skipper and crew (but it's always the handicap that is blamed) that always wins is dispiriting, specially if they obviously don't sail well. This system should even the playing field. My experience is it is the best, most consistent sailors that win the series anyway, but individual races may get different winners.

 

[BlueSkyNick]

My experience of rolling handicaps is that each boat's handicap is modified by its results so your 2 Impalas would have different handicaps. One could be using the latest hi-tech sails and the other baggy relics but this is handicap racing not OD. If you want to be serious about your racing go one-design or IRC, and may your wallet be deep. The 2 Impalas will certainly needle-race against each other but it will be more like golf where ability is handicapped. Like golf, one's rating against scratch is also a measure and in important races, i.e. not club round-the-cans, it is scratch that you race off.
Racing against a boat that has a bandit handicap or an ace skipper and crew (but it's always the handicap that is blamed) that always wins is dispiriting, specially if they obviously don't sail well. This system should even the playing field. My experience is it is the best, most consistent sailors that win the series anyway, but individual races may get different winners.

Well put awol,

the golf analogy is OK but not a true comparison because one's handicap changes after a certain number of rounds on the same course. Unless a club has particularly consistent winds and a very boring PRO, the course should be different every time.

The big problem with sailing is that there is no such thing as a perfect system - handicaps can be set one week and the conditions will be totally different the next.

I think the new NHC has a lot going for it, as it makes the best allowances for the variable conditions over a series, the range of boats, and the people sailing them.

 

[wotayottie]

This seems to be very badly handled.
There seems to be a lot of confsion over the aim of the system. Is it supposed to generate personal handicaps? Because that is what will happen, if you simply process the results using sailwave to create equal chances of winning.
But what happens if you have say two Impalas? do they both get the same number? If so, the good one will have a number depressed by the performance of the slower one.

There has been a lot of talk about process and little about what we are trying to achieve.

I think you are being unfair. The PY system is a performance based system that does give different personal handicaps to two Impalas which are sailed differently. The new system does exactly the same with the extra that you now get different handicaps for different race series.

 

[Birdseye]

As we have so many 'unusual' boats, we've just decided to look at using our PY numbers and convert them (reciprocal *1000 to get a 'TCF' number) and then use Sailwave to manipulate the handicaps in our series.

btw the beta version of Sailwave is available to download and use. (it has a couple of bugs but does do the sums right).

The theory being if we are fairly happy with our PY numbers that have been used over a number of seasons, why not use them as the base number rather than the wildly inaccurate ones from the RYA...

Piddy

They arent inaccurate at all - they are related to the IRC numbers so they are what you should be able to sail to. That said, doing what you propose or using the new system, you will end up with the same relativities after a few races anyway. In effect all the RYA have done is to adopt the IRC model to get a starter handicap number rather than have anyone with an uncommon boat toddling off to Byron software to get one calculated by him. And they have done this because club secretaries could not be bothered to send data back to the RYA to allow PY handicaps to be generated from actual race results

 

[Piddy]

I think you have missed the point I made about 'unusual' boats.... There are no IRC numbers for a big percentage of our fleet so the RYA are forced to guess and have come up with some strange numbers - at least for the boats I am looking at!

We have faithfully sent our returns in for the last few years - one of our members worked for the RYA so we got nagged until it was done each year!

Piddy

 

[BlueSkyNick]

I think you have missed the point I made about 'unusual' boats.... There are no IRC numbers for a big percentage of our fleet so the RYA are forced to guess and have come up with some strange numbers - at least for the boats I am looking at!

We have faithfully sent our returns in for the last few years - one of our members worked for the RYA so we got nagged until it was done each year!

Piddy

Well there inlies your problem !! If you hadnt sent those figures in, you would have a better handicap now...... maybe !

 

[smth448]

The problem I have with this system is that it benefits mediocrity. If you take the two Impalas already mentioned, the one with the new sails will be given a rating penalty vs the one withold baggy sails. The same goes for less expensive items like having a clean bottom. Why bother to use expensive antifouling and scrub regularly if you will gain a rating benefit by not bothering? Why bother to try to improve if your rating will get adjusted to meet your ability?
IRC is probably the best handicapping system we have at the moment but is a victim of its own success. Originally it was intended as a chap and cheerful rating system for club racing (in the days when it was CHS) but with the demise of all the Grand Prix handicap systems the big fish have moved into the IRC pond, forcing out the club racers. I don;t think this new scheme will have anything to offer club racers who take it a biot seriously but don't have bottomless wallets. It could be counter productive.
I assume it is aimed to get people hooked on racing and then if they decide they enjoy it to move up to IRC.
Our club plans to use the new system alongside IRC for this year. Boats with IRC ratings will also have new RYA ratings. The classes will be split into two with IRC boats appearing in two sets of results. I am not sure how they are going to divide the prizes though.

 

[wotayottie]

I think you have missed the point I made about 'unusual' boats.... There are no IRC numbers for a big percentage of our fleet so the RYA are forced to guess and have come up with some strange numbers - at least for the boats I am looking at! We have faithfully sent our returns in for the last few years - one of our members worked for the RYA so we got nagged until it was done each year!

Piddy

Piddy - IRC numbers are calculated by the RORC by putting boat dimensions from weight to beam to LOA and many others into a mathematical model. This model is similar to the VPP programs used by boat designers to produce data such as polar diagrams. The output of this mathematical model is a handicap number which takes into account the potential performance of the boat concerned and it can produce a handicap for any boat for which the data is available.

The new RYA handicap uses a very similar model developed in conjunction with the RORC and the new handicaps have been calculated from the basic dimensions of each boat. Such data is readily available , for example to sailmakers. If you use PY numbers you will be familiar with the Byron website which is / was widely used to fill gaps when the RYA didnt have a PY number - and Byrons PY numbers for non listed boats have been calculated in a similar way.

A new handicap number can be wrong of course - if the data input into the model is wrong then so will be the output. I had just such an experience personally. But be reassured. The RYA have not "guessed" any handicaps.

Interesting to know your club was one of the 18.

The problem I have with this system is that it benefits mediocrity. If you take the two Impalas already mentioned, the one with the new sails will be given a rating penalty vs the one withold baggy sails. The same goes for less expensive items like having a clean bottom. Why bother to use expensive antifouling and scrub regularly if you will gain a rating benefit by not bothering? Why bother to try to improve if your rating will get adjusted to meet your ability?
IRC is probably the best handicapping system we have at the moment but is a victim of its own success. Originally it was intended as a chap and cheerful rating system for club racing (in the days when it was CHS) but with the demise of all the Grand Prix handicap systems the big fish have moved into the IRC pond, forcing out the club racers. I don;t think this new scheme will have anything to offer club racers who take it a biot seriously but don't have bottomless wallets. It could be counter productive.
I assume it is aimed to get people hooked on racing and then if they decide they enjoy it to move up to IRC.
Our club plans to use the new system alongside IRC for this year. Boats with IRC ratings will also have new RYA ratings. The classes will be split into two with IRC boats appearing in two sets of results. I am not sure how they are going to divide the prizes though.

I'm not sure that being unable to afford new carbon sails each year makes you mediocre, but if you really want to be purist then you dont race IRC either. You race a single boat type.

IRC isnt a victim of its own success. To the contrary, in many areas it is struggling because of the annual cost of keeping a rating number.

 

[RYATechnical]

Good afternoon,

I will start by saying that its good to see so much interest in our new NHC scheme. From the vast majority of feedback that we have received from clubs around the country when we have gone to talk to them, it is about time that the RYA did some thing in this area.

For those questionning why we dropped PYS for Cruisers - the RYA simply ran out of usable data to be able to justify its PN list for Cruisers.

To those talking about why we went down a progressive handicapping route - I would welcome you to take up our open offer of a talk at a Yacht Club / Sailing Club near you. I will be at the Royal Western Yacht Club on Thursday evening if you are interested in finding out some more rationale and motivation behind the scheme. We will happily travel to any part of the country provided there is enough interest from the local clubs.

I will finish with the fact that we have not done anything new here. Progressive handicapping has been around for many years in a number of different countries. It has worked for many years and it has developed the sailing in those countries. We did a large amount of research into looking at existing schemes around the UK and Internationally and have unashamebly taken the best bits of a variety of schemes and labelled it NHC.

This is a busy time of year for the Department so I do not have the luxury of monitoring forums but if you have a viewpoint or question you would like to raise then please feel free to get in touch with the Technical Department directly.

technical@rya.org.uk

Cheers,

Bas Edmonds
RYA Technical Manager

 

[awol]

The problem I have with this system is that it benefits mediocrity. If you take the two Impalas already mentioned, the one with the new sails will be given a rating penalty vs the one withold baggy sails. The same goes for less expensive items like having a clean bottom. Why bother to use expensive antifouling and scrub regularly if you will gain a rating benefit by not bothering? Why bother to try to improve if your rating will get adjusted to meet your ability?

Or, on the other hand, it is an inclusive system that allows everyone no matter their skill level or their boat spend to take part in racing with the chance of being placed better than last. Newbie skippers and newbie crews enjoying their racing is what the sport needs. I really can't believe that anyone deliberately sails below their ability to improve their rating - human nature is to compete as hard as you can and try to sail to your handicap or better.

In the 2 Impala example, I would expect the baggy sail boat to enjoy his racing, and possibly occasional success, but to get pissed off that the other boat always pointed higher and sailed faster. His remedy will be to get better sails, clean his bottom, encourage his crew and try to improve his skills until he can compete on level terms. Or he might be an elderly codger, living on a diminishing pension, gradually losing strength, sailing with his wife and friends who are also getting on, but he still enjoys racing and an occasional success is enough to keep him going.