Handicap Vote time...

Shortly we'll be taking a vote on which way we'd like to go with our handicap/scoring system. In order to help you decide you can see below what the results would have been if we had run the last series under NHC. Obviously we're not able to offer you IRC or VPRS result comparisons without measuring all the boats.

Your options are:

• PY - You already know about (but this can only be a short term option)

• NHC - see below

• IRC - Proven but relatively expensive measurement based system

• VPRS -  Newish but inexpensive measurement based system

We are not currently aware of any other viable options.

The RYA are recommending clubs use a combination of NHC and IRC. As NHC only works for a series of races (rather than an individual event) an additional method is needed for standalone and other events.  If we adopt NHC we will have to select an additional scoring system to run alongside it.  If we consider IRC to be too expensive we could instead dual score against VPRS. 

If you're not familiar with NHC it starts with a published base number calculated from known data for each class of boat. It uses average measurements for each class so all boats of the same type start with the same base number.

It's a golf style handicap changing after each race to bring the fleet closer together. Depending on your point of view you might think this is a good thing, or you might just feel that the better you sail the more you get hammered. Whatever you point of view it will become progressively more difficult for the lead boats to maintain their positions. At the end of the series each boat's handicap is re-calibrated to somewhere between it's base number and it's final number in the series.

The 'NHC Results' tab above shows what would have happened if we were scoring our evening races under NHC - to see the handicaps working look at the individual race results - there is a column showing each boat's handicap starting the event and another showing what it will be in the next one.

As mentioned above we are not able to offer you IRC or VPRS result comparisons without measuring all the boats but that's really immaterial anyway - we're not publishing the NHC results so you can decide if you would do better or worse, just to show you how it would work in practice. The decision you have to make is whether you'd prefer a purely measurement based system (such as IRC/VPRS) or a personal performance handicap system (NHC). 

For more information on NHC go www.rya.org.uk/racing/Pages/NHC.aspx

for VPRS go to www.vprs.org

and for IRC go to www.ircrating.org



Gary Warr

Z Class Captain