Yardstick, rating

[Gwylan]

If I was stupid enough to think of going racing, for the pleasure of taking part of course, what handicap might I expect? That is if I was to think of using my Westerly Seahawk, bilge keeler.
There is a tacit assumption that we would not be timed out anyway.

Also is it sporting to empty the water tank and run with the lowest possible amount of diesel on board.

Other than the obvious handicap of an old age and trying to make a bilge keeled settee a racing machine.

 

[JumbleDuck]

Other than the obvious handicap of an old age and trying to make a bilge keeled settee a racing machine.

On the Clyde, a Seahawk would get 16.25 minutes per hour. For comparison, a Sigma 33 gets 15.25 minutes.

http://www.cyca-online.org.uk/cgi-bin/CSV_search.pl?database=webclasses

I understand that the new RYA system gives your boat an initial handicap and revises it constantly to make sure you don't win too often. Which sounds very motivating.

 

[lpdsn]

Also is it sporting to empty the water tank and run with the lowest possible amount of diesel on board.

Yes. Sometimes class rules will specify the minimum amount of diesel, but other than that just enough to get home safely.

You can also take off all the surplus cruising gear (providing the spare bedroom floor is strong enough to take the weight ).

What isn't allowed is to remove things like bunk cushions etc. Also items should be kept in their 'normal place'; you can't move weight as ballast.

 

[Seajet]

With luck the RYA should have a Portsmouth Yardstick rating for your Seahawk; I say with luck as not many will have raced seriously enough to hand in results for handicappers to form a decent idea of the boats' performance.

So a provisional P.Y. might be inaccurate in real life, could go for or against you !

There is a new system coming in intended to take over from the P.Y, but I don't know how it applies in your case.

 

[Leighb]

Somewhat surprisingly the Seahawk is not listed on the byronsoftware site which is generally a good place to look for cruiser PY numbers, worth looking there to see if there is another Westerly that has a very similar performance and work form there?

 

[alahol2]

The bilge keel Seahawk has a recommended PY of 1075 on the RYA list, confidence level 'VERY LOW'. Based on 4 races in one yacht.

 

[lw395]

The other place to look is Round The Island results, there may be an ISC rating.
The latest version of RYA PY is getting a lot of flak.

 

[Gwylan]

Flatters a Seahawk against a Sigma, I would have thought.