What is the point in NHC

[Birdseye]

But dont deceive yourself into thinking that crew skill is irrelevant in NHC. To the contrary, NHC requires week by week skill improvement if you are to beat the week by week handicap adjustments and come out on top.
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This is something I have been trying to get across to club members who oppose NHC, and my point is highlighted in post #16.

The race when we came fourth we had Adam Bowers on board. He is a member of our club and quite regularly comes out on peoples boats just for fun, and a bit of practical advice. The only thing was he knackered all of us. The spinnaker was going up and down like a whores drawers, we were first over the line, but no win.
I think the handicap should only be adjusted in a series. When the six, seven races are over the boat should go back to a base handicap to start the next, and this base handicap should be used for one off passage or cup races.
This would prevent people losing on purpose to keep a favourable handicap, then unloading the boat just to gain an advantage in a one day cup race.
Not that I think anyone from our club would want to do that.

Your club members might not do but ours definitely will.

For open meetings and regattas etc, there is no question - boats start on the base numbers. But within a club where much the same boats and crews turn up for each series, it makes sense to start where you left off. That way the results become very close indeed and the only issue is when a new boat enters the fleet. That can be given a trial number.

We are finding that NHC works well even though every boat in the fleet reckoned that they were disadvantaged when the change from PY came about! The results get increasingly close and improved sailing week by week really pays off. Ironically our IRC fleet includes a bandit boat which wins almost everything it is entered into despite being much the slowest and oldest boat in the fleet. And as long as he sails he will win - where's the fun in that?

 

[MissFitz]

On which basis I guess that golf isnt a sport. Nor is horse racing. In your view.

I haven't a clue about golf, but I do know about horse racing. The main point of handicapping there is to make races interesting for gamblers. Trainers then try to beat the handicapper through the careful selection of course, distance, type of race, jockey, going etc. Handicapping also provides the incidental benefit of more exciting finishes (because the handicapper's aim is to get all the horses finishing in a line). I don't really think this has any relevance for yacht racing.

FWIW I'm with the anti-NHC brigade. Totally agree with other comments re the contrariness of getting rewarded for being rubbish. Or, worse, for not turning up.

 

[Birdseye]

FWIW I'm with the anti-NHC brigade. Totally agree with other comments re the contrariness of getting rewarded for being rubbish. Or, worse, for not turning up.

I look forward to your explanation of how NHC rewards you for not turning up.

 

[mrming]

I look forward to your explanation of how NHC rewards you for not turning up.

I can state from bitter experience that it's quite the opposite.

 

[MissFitz]

I look forward to your explanation of how NHC rewards you for not turning up.

I may well be entirely wrong about this, as I have not looked at it in detail. I had the impression though that, other things being equal, boats that go out infrequently get better handicaps when they do go out than those that race regularly. Not so?

 

[KREW2]

I haven't a clue about golf.

Can we add Yacht racing to that list?

 

[MissFitz]

Can we add Yacht racing to that list?

Definitely

At risk of demonstrating my ignorance still further, though, is it not possible that a boat that goes out every week & does well will tend to be at a disadvantage compared to an identical boat that goes out occasionally & does equally well? This is what seemed to happen to us a couple of seasons ago. We went out regularly & did well, so our handicap went up by leaps & bounds. Then about once a month another boat of the same class would come out, start off a much lower handicap, & beat us. Obviously, that caused a modest adjustment to the handicaps of both - but ours would then go back up over the next few weeks & put us at a disadvantage again. Or at least it seemed to. But it is, of course, entirely possible that we were imagining it..........

 

[Ceirwan]

NHC might require week by week improvement, which is excellent if you're new and have lots to learn.
Obviously everyone has room for improvement, but its a game of diminishing returns. I learn every time I sail a boat, but I don't learn anywhere near as much as I did years ago.
Even after all that I hate the idea of being handicapped on 'skill' or ability.

I get that casual racers don't want to pay their cash to IRC for something they aren't hugely bothered about, I just feel that NHC is a step back from PY which itself wasn't that amazing.

As I posted earlier, we're trying out the Byron handicap system this year, you can send away and get a number for free, and then the handicap is based on the boat you sail not how well you have or haven't done.

 

[DFL1010]

You cannot make a like-for-like comparison between IRC and NHC. The former is a rating system, and the latter is a handicapping system.

Under IRC, two identical boats will necessarily have the same rating, regardless of the quality of the sailors, and (linked) the amount of preparation (££) that goes into the boat.


NHC is a handicap, that is altered by both sailor skill and by preparation. If you go from a few years of going out for racing only, and using 10yr old dacrons, to going out every day doing training, and buying 3Di Raw sails every few weeks, then your handicap will change as you go faster (which one might suggest you would).



The net result for a club (IMHO) is that when choosing what system to use, the club must choose what kind of sailor they want to win. Do you want the person with blown-out sails, and a few months' growth on the foils to win because they sail that boat as well as it can be sailed, or do you want to someone who puts as much time into prep as they can, spending as much as is needed on upkeep, etc, to win?

There's pros and cons to both: I think that rewarding preparation is entirely valid, but there's the downside of entering into cheque-book racing. Conversely, rewarding personal performance is a very nice aim, but there's a risk of a) people sandbagging (deliberately or otherwise); and b) it can effectively encourage people to buy new-to-them boats often so that they avoid the problem of diminishing rewards.



All that said, generally whatever system used (NHC, IRC, box rule, OD, local homebrew systems), the good sailors will tend to win more often than the less-good sailors. There's been a few clubs in my neck of the woods that keep changing their systems to change the results, with *ahem* limited success.

 

[bobgarrett]

I agree that we need to compare like with like as they have different goals.

A rating system (be it IRC or as my club uses VPRS) you get a fixed handicap for the boat with its sails. That means you can see how you (the person not the boat) are progressing by seeing whether your finish position is improving or not (in my case not!). However, as others have said, you can also improve your position by spending more money, or changing to a boat which somehow plays the calculations (how does that boat have that handicap?!). Of course you still have the variables which make one boat do better in heavy weather, or on a specific course. And as others have said, you can only resolve this with a One Design system.

With a variable handicap system (of which NHC is just one, and my club also uses this) you can see how you are progressing if your handicap changes, but I believe you can alter how quickly this changes to reduce the effect of one race etc. For the less serious racer this is attractive and does not mean the owner with the biggest wallet is at an automatic and long term advantage.

So it is horses(!) for courses. If NHC attracts more to race - and we all know so many sailors are always racing if there is another yacht going in the same direction - then we aid the sport and we hope they later move up to a rating system.

 

[KREW2]

Definitely

At risk of demonstrating my ignorance still further, though, is it not possible that a boat that goes out every week & does well will tend to be at a disadvantage compared to an identical boat that goes out occasionally & does equally well? This is what seemed to happen to us a couple of seasons ago. We went out regularly & did well, so our handicap went up by leaps & bounds. Then about once a month another boat of the same class would come out, start off a much lower handicap, & beat us. Obviously, that caused a modest adjustment to the handicaps of both - but ours would then go back up over the next few weeks & put us at a disadvantage again. Or at least it seemed to. But it is, of course, entirely possible that we were imagining it..........

Perhaps I should add myself, as I don't know how the calculations are made.

Last night we took line honours in the Z class race. About 7 boats turned out, and needles to say we won the NHC class.
No wonder the other 6 were all IRC.
My handicap has been altered, so next week if more NHC boats come out I will have to do better.
There is the odd occasion when we are only two on board, both pushing seventy, and racing six ton of boat, so we need all the help we can get.

 

[Ceirwan]

Perhaps I should add myself, as I don't know how the calculations are made.

Last night we took line honours in the Z class race. About 7 boats turned out, and needles to say we won the NHC class.
No wonder the other 6 were all IRC.
My handicap has been altered, so next week if more NHC boats come out I will have to do better.
There is the odd occasion when we are only two on board, both pushing seventy, and racing six ton of boat, so we need all the help we can get.

How can you have a race if there was no one else in your class?

 

[Birdseye]

I may well be entirely wrong about this, as I have not looked at it in detail. I had the impression though that, other things being equal, boats that go out infrequently get better handicaps when they do go out than those that race regularly. Not so?

Handicaps only adjust after a race so if you turned out infrequently and when you did turn out you sailed better than your handicap, then the infrequent appearances would mean that your handicap adjusted to where it should be a bit slower than if you turned out for every race. But then if you turn out infrequently you cant win the series anyway. The more typical situation is the reverse of that - a boat that is sailed infrequently and because of lack of practice is sailed badly ends up with a handicap which takes a bit linger to reflect their performance. Either way the room to play games is limited and wont win you the series.

Perhaps I should add myself, as I don't know how the calculations are made.

Last night we took line honours in the Z class race. About 7 boats turned out, and needles to say we won the NHC class.
No wonder the other 6 were all IRC. My handicap has been altered, so next week if more NHC boats come out I will have to do better.
There is the odd occasion when we are only two on board, both pushing seventy, and racing six ton of boat, so we need all the help we can get.

From what you say I suspect that your club is messing around with what the RYA call dual scoring ie you raced as one fleet with the whole fleet being given a set of NHC results and the IRC boats also getting IRC results. Bloody daft idea IMO

 

[Birdseye]

I get that casual racers don't want to pay their cash to IRC for something they aren't hugely bothered about, I just feel that NHC is a step back from PY which itself wasn't that amazing.

As I posted earlier, we're trying out the Byron handicap system this year, you can send away and get a number for free, and then the handicap is based on the boat you sail not how well you have or haven't done.

There is a lot of misunderstanding here or at least a different understanding to mine..

PY was based on race results that clubs gave the RYA but it failed in the end because clubs didnt give in their returns. I believe that in the last year it operated only something like 5 clubs in the whole of the UK sent in their data. But since it was based on race results it was a performance based system albeit the performance wasnt yours but an average of everyone's. It did mean however than boats that were raced in the Solent by keen competent crews, like say the old Sigma 33, got tight handicaps whilst the handicaps for rarer or cruiser type boats were eratic to say the least.

It didnt help that whilst the PY handicaps should have been adjusted after every race in a series some clubs didnt bother, others didnt know how to, and it was all at the discretion of the race officer. Who could be bullied etc.

Byron devised a system to generate PY numbers for boats that werent listed by the RYA. The numbers were based on design data culled from brochures I believe, but the program correlates the results of the calx with the RYA PY numbers

Faced with the problem of few returns, the RYA got together with the RORC and devised the NHC base numbers which like IRC numbers are calculated from boat design data. The system is more simple than the IRC calculation but its the same basic idea.The big difference comes in the race by race adjustment from that starting number, though its fair to say that the base number doesnt take into account all the little adjustments that the PY system allowed ( eg, folder vs 2 blade vs 3 blade, single keel vs twin etc)

What many sailors dont realise is that if you take the reciprocal of the PY number and apply a suitable constant, you end up with a handicap number that correlates quite well with NHC handicaps. In other words the real big difference between PY and NHC isnt the start number but the NHC system of handicap change race to race, a system which is standard and protects the race officer from being buttonholed or playing favourites

 

[KREW2]

Handicaps only adjust after a race so if you turned out infrequently and when you did turn out you sailed better than your handicap, then the infrequent appearances would mean that your handicap adjusted to where it should be a bit slower than if you turned out for every race. But then if you turn out infrequently you cant win the series anyway. The more typical situation is the reverse of that - a boat that is sailed infrequently and because of lack of practice is sailed badly ends up with a handicap which takes a bit linger to reflect their performance. Either way the room to play games is limited and wont win you the series.



From what you say I suspect that your club is messing around with what the RYA call dual scoring ie you raced as one fleet with the whole fleet being given a set of NHC results and the IRC boats also getting IRC results. Bloody daft idea IMO

Yes, we all have the same start time, fly the E flag, then the race is dual scored.
Ceirwan, yes not really a race for me, but it is still nice to take line honours, and finish a minute ahead of the IRC fleet.

Last summer it was worse maybe 8/9 boats on a Monday.
Starts were sometimes IRC fast, IRC slow, NHC fast NHC slow.
If I recall correctly NHC fast and IRC fast should have gone off together first, followed by NHC slow and IRC slow.
There was a lot of confusion, not only from some competitors, but also the race officers, and variety of flags flown was a sight to behold.

 

[DJE]

What many sailors dont realise is that if you take the reciprocal of the PY number and apply a suitable constant, you end up with a handicap number that correlates quite well with NHC handicaps.

Using the data for all the boats which appeared on both lists I tried to come up with a conversion formula. But the correlation isn't that great:-

Probably would have been better if I only used the more commonly raced boats.

 

[H4B]

Handicaps only adjust after a race so if you turned out infrequently and when you did turn out you sailed better than your handicap, then the infrequent appearances would mean that your handicap adjusted to where it should be a bit slower than if you turned out for every race. But then if you turn out infrequently you cant win the series anyway. The more typical situation is the reverse of that - a boat that is sailed infrequently and because of lack of practice is sailed badly ends up with a handicap which takes a bit linger to reflect their performance. Either way the room to play games is limited and wont win you the series.



From what you say I suspect that your club is messing around with what the RYA call dual scoring ie you raced as one fleet with the whole fleet being given a set of NHC results and the IRC boats also getting IRC results. Bloody daft idea IMO

The infrequent participants may not win the series but they can affect the end result.

 

[Birdseye]

The infrequent participants may not win the series but they can affect the end result.

A they can in any handicap system