What is the experience so far of the new RYA handicap system?

[Birdseye]

We were chatting about this at our annual skippers meeting but no one had any practical experience of it.

 

[st599]

Used it at Dartmouth last year.

It's a curve fitting exercise, the equation is published. Some of the parameters seem random and subjective e.g. hull flare (a number between 1 and 4 based on a photo). Also, it's based on manufacturer data, so if you strip a boat out for racing, same handicap as a sailing school boat.

 

[flaming]

Used it at Dartmouth last year.

It's a curve fitting exercise, the equation is published. Some of the parameters seem random and subjective e.g. hull flare (a number between 1 and 4 based on a photo). Also, it's based on manufacturer data, so if you strip a boat out for racing, same handicap as a sailing school boat.

If you strip out a boat for racing, you should be in the IRC fleet I would have thought.

 

[mrming]

I was racing in the first of a series today where the whole fleet was scored on YTC, and a subset were rated for / scored on IRC. Only one race so can’t draw too many conclusions just yet but YTC seemed to reward slower boats and the results across the two ratings were different.

 

[Piddy]

That's interesting. I've picked up the mantle of organising the cruiser racing at our club again for next year. We have a homegrown self-adjusting handicap system which the more competitive racers don't like (but still win when using the system) but has demonstrated over the last few years to bring corrected times closer together. The clamour has now started to use the YTC system which other local Clubs are now doing.
I compared our last evening series (with 8 races and a total of 8 boats competing - numbers are still down post-covid) and I found that in general, the newer, more competitive boats would have gained and the older boats would have lost out. I ran the results without self - adjusting and also reset the handicaps to those of YTC but self adjusting with similar results. I can't see why we would change but as a non-competitor myself, I am dependant on the racers turning up.

 

[Birdseye]

Its a no win Piddy. The keen racer types in the modern boat will want a fixed handicap of the IRC type and YTC is a simpler no cost version of this. They kid themselves that racing like this at club level repays their racing skill but reality is that it also repays money spent on equipment and a modern boat. You can buy success at IRC and YTC.

On the other hand PY, NHC are golf style handicaps designed to give everyone a chance even down to the old banger with bulging sails and a load of tat on board. It gives you closer racing on corrected times if operated correctly.

Our fleets split near enough 50/50 between NHC and IRC

 

[Chiara’s slave]

I’m now prevented from entering the Needles relief charity race because they’ve adopted YTC. I think that is a grave mistake. A bunch of forms to fill in, and quite onerous ones for non serious racers who you’d surely want to attract for a charity benefit. I predict entries will be low.

 

[Piddy]

Its a no win Piddy. The keen racer types in the modern boat will want a fixed handicap of the IRC type and YTC is a simpler no cost version of this. They kid themselves that racing like this at club level repays their racing skill but reality is that it also repays money spent on equipment and a modern boat. You can buy success at IRC and YTC.

On the other hand PY, NHC are golf style handicaps designed to give everyone a chance even down to the old banger with bulging sails and a load of tat on board. It gives you closer racing on corrected times if operated correctly.

Our fleets split near enough 50/50 between NHC and IRC

We have just a couple of noisy racers that believe our self-adjusting system is 'putting people off'. I can think of many reasons why the racing hasn't returned to pre-Covid levels but our handicapping system isn't one of them.
My mantra has always been that on a good day (i.e. when it suits the boat), when sailed as well as it can be, a competitor should stand a chance of wining. When boats get a bandit handicap from a rating authority for whatever reason, it leads to frustration. My own experience in the ISC R-T-I-R in finding out we had the fastest Moody in the race (according to the handicaps) out of 60+ boats in that year certainly didn't encourage me. Our M376 was dwarfed by newer and faster Moodys including a certain B. Dixon in his quite new M49. That's where handicaps based on lengths and areas which are fixed can fail.
I have applied for a YTC handicap for my boat to get some idea of the issues.

 

[Mudisox]

I had thought that the reason clubs organise racing, is to give members a reason to get on the water and then have something to talk about in the bar afterwards.

 

[Birdseye]

Got it in one. Trouble is, the chat is often about bandits and funny handicap systems!

 

[B27]

There's two proper ways to do handicap racing.
One is to understand the yardstick system, and buy a boat which gives you the best chance of winning, then game the system.
The other is to just sails the race and completely ignore what the spreadsheet says.

Anything in between is just asking for arguments and disappointment.
PY in dinghies is bad enough, with yachts there's too many designs not being raced in big enough numbers to give useful or credible data.

 

[st599]

There's two proper ways to do handicap racing.
One is to understand the yardstick system, and buy a boat which gives you the best chance of winning, then game the system.
The other is to just sails the race and completely ignore what the spreadsheet says.

Anything in between is just asking for arguments and disappointment.
PY in dinghies is bad enough, with yachts there's too many designs not being raced in big enough numbers to give useful or credible data.

Which is why the RYA is moving from PY to the new curve fitting exercise discussed here.

 

[B27]

Which is why the RYA is moving from PY to the new curve fitting exercise discussed here.

But the outcome will be the same.
People have lost faith in 'handicap'.
Boats have become too diverse, you can't handicap a planing boat or an asy boat against an old school boat, or a big boat against a little boat and have one number cover a range of courses and windstrengths.
You can work with similar boats of similar size, a 70s 32ft boat against a 70s 34ft boat, but it's unrealistic to pitch J-boats against Contessas.

Either race 'development' where boat design etc is part of the game, or One Design.
Chopping and changing between 'personal handicaps' and 'velocity prediction models' and 'class result PY style' just makes people realise that it's all meaningless. One of my dinghies dropped a few points every year for 10 years on the trot. A combination of people not agreeing what the system is supposed to do, and chronically flawed number crunching.
It's lost a lot of respect, people see through it when the numbers for age-old designs keep changing.
And people don't really want 'personal handicaps' which reward having poor results in your history.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

Last year, our esteemed race committee decided to retrospectively apply personal handcap to a prestigious trophy race. That didn’t go down well! Aimed, obviously, at getting a different winner. Anything is better than that.

I can see a place for a non Grand Prix measurement derived handicap I guess, but will it not a) kill off the top level formula by rareifying it, and b) discourage those who don’t want to fill out a relatively complex rating form from ever racing at all? NHC may be imperfect, but it’s good enough for that after race bar discussion. Is YTC going to change that for the better, I think not.

 

[flaming]

Last year, our esteemed race committee decided to retrospectively apply personal handcap to a prestigious trophy race. That didn’t go down well! Aimed, obviously, at getting a different winner. Anything is better than that.

I can see a place for a non Grand Prix measurement derived handicap I guess, but will it not a) kill off the top level formula by rareifying it, and b) discourage those who don’t want to fill out a relatively complex rating form from ever racing at all? NHC may be imperfect, but it’s good enough for that after race bar discussion. Is YTC going to change that for the better, I think not.

The problem is that all possible solutions have big problems.

You go for a handicap solution, with changing handicaps based on an initial educated guess and then returned results, and you get disgruntled "that's not right" and accusations of bias in the committee, and not great data from small numbers of boats racing in the returns. Which puts people off.

You got for a measured handicap and to make it work well it gets complicated quickly. Which puts people off.

What is clear though, is that the idea that people will continue to turn up if they don't think their rating is reflective of their boat's observed performance is nonsense.

 

[Chiara’s slave]

When TPTB recognise that it’s a problem with no perfect solution and stop the Crazy Eddie behaviour, we’ll all be better off.

 

[Birdseye]

Which is why the RYA is moving from PY to the new curve fitting exercise discussed here.

The RYA moved from PY some years ago because they never got returns from most member clubs. Whats more most clubs never ran it as it was supposed to be run with adjustments after each race.

NHC replaced PY as the Golf Style handicap based on:
base numbers developed with cooperation from RORC and using published design data and a VPP
no adjustment factors for things like twin keels, folding props as PY had
standard software to do the between race adjustments to eliminate pressure on club race officers
software designed to initially make large corrections getting smaller as a series ran on.

Once bedded down, NHC works well often with very close corrected results

 

[st599]

Had a chat with the relevant RYA team at the club conference.

The sizes entered in the form by the owner are the brochure sizes from time of sale. If you don't know, you can ask for the average of the make and model to be applied to you. The owner's affiliated club can alter them if they measure it differently.

 

[Piddy]

Once bedded down, NHC works well often with very close corrected results

We found that the nhc rate of adjustment was too severe - sailing in tidal waters would often allow a faster boat to 'escape' around a tidal gate and finish a long way in front of the rest of the fleet. The resultant handicap change would make the boat uncompetitive for the rest of the season while it worked off the win. This happened on quite a few occasions, resulting in us creating our own self-adjusting handicap.
Not related to nhc, difficulties arise with supposedly identical boats, one sailed well and one not so well, coming first and last of a fleet of other disparate boats. Explaining to the last place boat that he would be penalised even more was difficult!

I have applied for a YTC handicap for my boat to gauge where I would fit into the new regime only for them to tell me it's ~2000kg lighter than reality. It immediately causes me to suspect the handicap when they tell me it's a 'standard' weight for my class of boat. A nearly 38' Moody at 6600kg.... Hmmm... Whenever a crane has picked it up they tell me it's over 8000kg.

 

[Birdseye]

There is not handicap system that will ever compensate for a fast boat just making a tidal gate whilst slower boats fail. For that matter there is no handicap system I am aware of which will compensate for a 38ft boat and a 26ft one sailing in waters where say the tides vary from 4kn at springs to 1kn at neaps. Just do some simply SOG calx to see what I mean.

" Explaining to the last place boat that he would be penalised even more was difficult!" is a misunderstanding. Two identical baots get different adjustments according to their actual results. We had 2 sigma 33 in one series, one was sailed by an experienced racer, the other turned up every so often and was almost always last over the line. They had two markedly different handicaps.

I know where you are coming from with your weight comment. I won a series thanks to my boat being given an incorrect handicap by Byron. He had wrong info.