awol
Well-Known Member
Considering a pursuit race to involve YTC - restricted sail and spinnakers, and IRC handicapped boats. Can I just use the TCF from both systems and have a reasonably fair race?
YTC vs IRC for a pursuit race?
- Thread starter awol
- Start date
flaming
Well-Known Member
Having never raced under YTC I'm not sure how exactly it's calculated. But I just found this list.
RYA YTC Listings - Royal Ocean Racing Club | Rating Office
J109s are typically around 1.000-1.010 under IRC at the moment.
That YTC list has them in the 860-870ish range for YTC.
Of course the YTC has to be further caluculated as 1000/YTC to get a comparison with IRC. Doing that for an 865 YTC rating would give an equivalent IRC rating of 1.156.
Or approximately 110 points higher. Or nearly 7 minutes per hour faster. Which I would suggest makes it tricky to simply flip the numbers and get good results...
If I was you I'd declare that you'll arrange the pursuit start times under "PRO's special rating" and ask boats to submit whatever rating that they have, either IRC or YTC, and then simply adjust as practicable. To emphasise that it's just for fun offer rating credits for fancy dress or towing a dinghy or whatever else makes sense.
If anyone gets too upset about whatever rating you give them hit them over the head with a rolled up newspaper whilst making them repeat "it's just a fun pursuit race, it's just a fun pursuit race". Then up their rating by a minute an hour.
awol
Well-Known Member
I like it! There is bound to be at least one who wants to take it seriously.
flaming
Well-Known Member
I haven't raced a pursuit race in years. The last one I remember was a charity one to open the Torbay regatta. We only had about half the regular crew, and decided not to fly a kite, but we were rapidly overtaking everyone, until we were in second when they called that it was now the finish. We looked up and realised that actually we were going to cross ahead of the small boat that was still hanging on to the lead. This wasn't on. We can't win this.... So we ensured that after crossing them we tacked for the line and oh no... The jib sheet just wouldn't release. Oh dear. Never mind.
1st prize was a brand new VHF. Second prize was a round at the club bar for the crew. Happy days.....
Egret
Well-Known Member
If it's a fun race, how about setting a course and a finish time, and boats choose their own start time and aim to cross the finish line as close to the finish time as possible, but not before.
Egret
Well-Known Member
Seriously, if you have some elapsed times from races, see how they compare, to work out a multiplication factor to apply between the two systems - and whether they both rate the same boat as 1.00 - if not, an adjustment there too - and compare with Old Portsmouth Numbers for some of the boats - some clubs publish a long list - let us know what you find.
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Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
We have 2 pursuit races every year at RSYC. They calculate the start times from NHC, for boats that race regularly that will be straight out of Sailwave, for the additional fun racers, off the RYA base list. The PRO does ours an hour before the start on the basis of wind and course. Last year for one of them we had a 3 mile beat against the tide in light winds, that was quite embarrassing. But you’re always going to get anomalies in handicapping in tidal waters. We only enter to show the boat off, let the doubting Thomases see her fly. Almost every boat has a base NHC listed, it’s the easiest way, and probably the fairest with all the numbers starting off from the same list of handicaps.
PeterV
Well-Known Member
My understanding is that any IRC rated boat can get a free YTC as well so you could ask for that and run it all under YTC. However, YTC is a very much simplified rating and basically only uses hull measurements and maximum sail sizes so it’s still the case that a boat that’s optimised for racing will do better. It’s also the case that different conditions will favour different boats as with all handicap racing. And after all, it’s only for fun!
We’ve raced under YTCand NHC and my view is that the NHC base numbers have far more anomalies than YTC, so to me YTC seems fairer than NHC.
We’ve raced under YTCand NHC and my view is that the NHC base numbers have far more anomalies than YTC, so to me YTC seems fairer than NHC.
Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
The NHC anomalies are because it’s performance derived. It’s hard to win on NHC in a class that has a dedicated racing fraternity, like the Contessa 32. Easy to win in some old tub that no serious racer would touch. I guess if everyone who enters has a YTC or IRC number, then that is the way to go. But a ‘fun’ race is likely to attract your occasional racers who don’t have a YTC handicap.
sawduster
Well-Known Member
YTC is free and just a simple online form required so assuming the boats are standard production boats the hardest part is measuring sails. Those with an IRC handicap should have gone well beyond that and can just copy the relevant numbers over and then you'll have everyone in the same system.
Chiara’s slave
Well-Known Member
That would be ideal. We have a sail measurer at our club, a neutral one for YTC as his boat isn’t eligible for a YTC number. But as yet, no YTC contestants have emerged. To be fair, our mono race fleet has at least 5 1 offs that I can think of.
barca nova
Active Member
whilst the calculation methodology might be similar, there is no reason to think that the base numbers will be the same as Flaming illustrates. A pursuit race really requires all boats to be on the same handicap system and even then big boat size differences will make a nonsense of the relativities particularly in tidal waters and with stronger winds.
Pursuit faces are fun races not serious.
Minerva
Well-Known Member
I actually like that idea a lot.
oldbloke
Well-Known Member
But that applies to all handicap racing. I don't see that Start at different times and finish at the same time is intrinsically more random than Start at the same time and finish at different times.
BobnLesley
Well-Known Member
We aren't racers, but we once entered - at about 23:00 the night before... drink had been taken - a two handed Christmas Day race in the Caribbean. We didn't have a handicap or even any idea what it might be, but were assured that this would be "calculated tomorrow, while you're racing". We didn't do well, in part because we hadn't realised that the 'two handed' rule only applied to crossing the start and finish lines; apparently you could have as many as you wanted aboard once you were out of the bay. Things took a bigger turn for the worse when many (and all of the local yachts) turned inshore 'far too early' to clear the top of the island; it was about ten minutes later when we found the tidal rip that 'everyone knows about'. Still, we made it around and in what we thought might be about ninth or tenth position... maybe higher when the handicap adjustments were made and everything close behind us was bigger than our 35'. But come the prize-giving we were disappointed to discover that we were ranked eleventh, having 'lost on handicap' to the 54' ketch that came in a minute or so after us.
It was a cracking day and night though made even better when we discovered that the ketch's skipper had picked-up the tab for our bar bill.
oldbloke
Well-Known Member
Actually, should be " than start at the same time and finish at the same time (but not necessarily in the same place)
