Handicap Racing Practice and Philosophy

Handicap racing is to me a necessary evil and I avoid it if there is OD sailing to be had, but of course it has been at the centre of yacht racing since the first pairs of dutch jakt or english square riggers lined up against each other on a start line gentlemen being canny. Maybe it all began with one owner congratulating the other team on a win, while then interjecting wryly that perhaps a taller rig was beneficial to fair progress.

Thus  ways of rendering different boats to a relative or evened result by correcting performance have been invented, evolved, revised, and rejected over the span of 400 years. By in large the post race discussion has been though about how un-fair, punitive, secretive or otherwise innappropriate the systems for handicapping actually are and how bad sailing is explained away or that gross fortuity is the result of magical in-the-zone team performance.

Love it or hate it? Necessary evil really, for the vast majority of sailors who choose a boat with good cruising ability, and for an increasing number of racing dinghy sailors, you really have no choice if you are not willing to travel or sell up and go one design. And the vast majority of boats are served well across the world now either by the IRC system, yardstick recorded performance,vpp predicted performance or a synthesis of the two like the two CYCA or LYS systems, or a modification

As mentioned you may well find yourself falling OUT of a one design fleet as it looses its centre of gravity : take the x332 or the promising bene 31.7, maybe even folkboats or an ageing classic.

So what is the scoop? How do you approach handicap racing ? Is it a frustrating way of sailing where you feel damned by a little number and the inescapable water-line #cannaeDefyTheLawsofPhysics or cursed by a high average?

Firstly you have most to learn from, you got it, one designs and controlled development classes. The key here is the big chapter on "boat speed" which is usually at least three quarters on boat-prep and set up!

A handicap can indeed damn you, but dont throw the principles of boat speed and rig set up out with the bath water of a hard handicapp to sail to as distracions.

Here is the secret scoop in principle and philosophy

1) a handicap can be sailed to above average: it is either an average recorded by previous race results or people in a handicap class sail boats of a tight spread of say IRC handicap to an actual average performance on the water which can be surpassed.
2) handicap also reflects some aspects of the boats own equation of design-peformance-foibles-fortuities while other features are obscured and there fore there to be worked up
3) You need to know your enemy and pick your battles

Average is Mediocre- Aspire to Above Average

PY portsmouth yardstick, is I beleive the longest operating performanced recorded systems going and timed results therefore reflect an average distribution of those figures. If you sail say a wayfarer, then the people who sail fastest in their boat are in the top portion or highest standard deviation. That is not to say they win in HC fleets the most per se. It is just they are feeding in the fastest times.

If race officers submit a lot of PY returns from OD results for say the sturdy wayfarer then the distribution curve will be sharper with very little to separate fast from slow. But in a large class with ageing boats and competitors then the yardstick can trend down over time or the distribution become wider around the same average result.

Take a boat similar in looks to the layman to the wayfarer: the Tasar. Here is a boat which has had a handicap around that of Merlin Rockets, 420s and the ff yet this twitchy boat can be eaked into the realms of 505s or RS400s at either end of the wind ranges sailed in by the best crews.

So you can prepare a boat and learn to sail it such that it is no longer an average boat for PY in this instance.

Also this average performance is often (not of course always) a factor in IRC where the boat is design measured often before it hits the wet stuff. In other words a single design of boat or a range of boats sharing a similar handicap rating, can be sailed on the water at different average performances. Now this is not then a factor of the cumulative performances but rather a factor of firstly boat design versus the wind and sea state and then of course boat prep and rig set up and last not least  team performance. So if you sail consistently above average in speed and tactics than the next mans Elan 333 or 1.095 boat then you can get better results in a series where consistency counts. Or you can pick your battles with this in mind and a very good understanding of what conditions your boat will sail relatively faster in and who you aim to beat tactically.

On individual races with a wide handicap range for a local IRC division say, then it can be disheartening to always finish  fourth or fifth on wednesdays as good sailors in a fleet over around 15 boats, but if that is a series then you are hitting your number like a hammer on the nail until you get an overall podium result.

Knowing the SWOT of your boat

Stregnths and weaknesses. Opportunism and when you are just burries.

A key thing is then as any good military strategy, to place your greatest stregths at the enemy's weakest point.

Take two different boats i have sailed a lot on, which fell out of OD racing by in large: the Sigma 38 and the Laser 28 , both often quoted as "dogs" on IRC and both of which i have done okay in IRC at.

The big 38 is underpowered and over handicapped for light winds. It holds allegedly its no.1 genoa to 25knts and was designed as a sit in cockpit, offshore OD racer. It can do well against lighter IRC optimised boats then when the wind is up and the distance is long. Conversely, it is heavy enough to punch through holes in the light stuff by carrying its way and the small genoa can hold attached flow better than a longer chord one.

The little 28 can of course "lift her skirt" and fly at 14 knts planing merrily in force 5-7 but in fact if you keep the cruising junk out and the tanks near empty then it has killer acceleration out of the tacks and gybes, off the start and round the corner bits.

So in the first you may want to choose a battle against non IRC optimised boats in maybe a broader handicap banded class in a series or a long distance race and take advantage of these two factors at either end of the scale.

In the laser 28, you can choose in otherwise seemingly unfavorable light to medium winds to play the card of tacking often for wind or tide advantage or to be tactical, match racing close ranked opponents or forcing otherwise superior boats into tacking duels where you win the upper hand in freeing your air to windward.

This acceleration and full speed is a crucial point in this section about knwoing your design and optimising: you guessed it the word average comes into it again.

IRC or PHRF for that matter are both respected and maligned but they often get some cruising boats right, while the arms race at the cheque book end has evolved a couple of general best design type boats over 35 , around 40 and over 55 foot. So the rule works and that is largely because you cannae defy the laws of physics jim. Water line legnth to deliverable power is critical to the whole calculation, and planing boats are by in large overly penalised ( bar the plateau and the redfox 29 which seem to avoid a multiplier somewhere in IRC while actually being planing machines).

What the rule does not calculate or penalise is the acceleration curve to top speed , ie the polar diagram plots for different wind speeds. (Perhaps ORCi does in the VPP??) So a boat like a laser 28/Redfox 29 will come up to its waterline speed quicker and in lighter wind than a bigger cruising boat with similar rating. The cruising boat may go faster and point higher on paper at a maximum, but it will take much longer to get there.

I have been on a humble plateau and sailed the tits off j109s and an IMX40 because they are actually quite hard to get up to "foil speed " and max speed when tacking frequently in a channel or a short course.

IRC is of course a crude velocity prediction , by arbitary formula where scratch boat is 1.000. However the same applies to keel boats at least sailing in recorded average performance or to the skill factor in sailing a dinghy.

Now you start to see that to improve your HC performances over a series, or to win a given cherry picked trophy, you need to learn a lot from OD: preparing your boat to go fast for the conditions, training to get speed and pointing sorted, optimisig spinnaker work and using tactics to upset or avoid the competition are all key factors.

The one area beyond this though is then choosing your battles or avoiding mediocrity.

The converse of my plateau experiences where light winds and frquent tacking gave us the edge is if you have a heavy boat then letting the long legs run in more wind offshore could be the real place to get silverware from.