A race for Optimists, ILCAs and 420 needs to be conducted. using Portsmouth Yardstick. I solicit the forum members to guide me with any SIs or NoR instructions which will be helpful in the conduct of the races. What yardstick should be followed as there is no historical record of the boats performance is available in this format of racing. Any other issues which merit attention may also be highlighted.
The format for the racing is designed in a manner where the different classes are intended to sail together.
will we be able to further score the other boats in a similar manner so that all boats have a score in the combined result?
For handicap race all start together and finish when the race is long enough. All boats start at zero time. Record finish time and the number of laps completed for each boat.
Useful to record each boats time or position for each lap to guage when to finish the race.
You then calculate their individual PY amended average lap time and multiply it by the number of laps for the leader to get an amended race time .
For a Pursuit race calculate a starting time for each class. Have a countdown display so they start at the correct time.
After the race duration sound a loud hooter and record each boats finish position on the water.
During the race record their positions after each lap.
Ideally race them as separate classes but if they did to race together the main issue is that the three classes have significant speed differences so a handicap race where they all start together is going to be difficult because the 420 will be going so much faster than the optimist so race duration for the boats will be significantly different. You could resolve this using ‘average laps’. The faster boats will do more laps than the slower boats. You record times for all boats and for the boats that do fewer laps you calculate what there time would be if they sailed the same number of laps as other boats. You then calculate the corrected times using the PYs to determine the result.
Alternatively, and possibly a better option, is to run a pursuit race. The duration of the race is set to a fixed length and the slowest boats start 1st and this is the nominal start time. Faster boats start at set time delays after the nominal start based in their PY. The race runs for the set duration From the nominal start time. A sound signal is made to indicate the end of the race. The winner is the boat in the lead, 2nd following boat etc etc. Takes a big of maths to work out the starting delay but not difficult. Benefit is that the start line is less crowded as boats are starting at different times. Limitations are that you can’t have general recalls, only individual and when the finishing hooter sounds some boats may be on different sides of a beat to windward so may be difficult to determine positions.
At my club we use both methods when there is a mix of varying classes and both methods work well.
That means your course needs to start and finish in the same place and use laps. People sometimes do hideous things like move the committee boat to finish like they might on a standard race. Don't. You can't. Because you need lap numbers.
Pursuits are great. You can see how it's panning out. BUT...
1. The poor guy in the Oppi is sailing 60% longer than the 420, but in terms of strength is likely the less physical sailor.
2. The finish is handled in a variety of ways. In the perfect world you'd have a helicopter overhead and freeze frame the boats to capture places
3. The start times - sometimes people round them to whole minutes. e.g. the Oppi starts at time 0 and the laser at time 12 minutes later. The snag is if your ICLA6 and 7 start at say 11 minutes and 13 minutes because 11:25 rounded down and 12:35 rounded up. But in a normal race you'd not accept being told you can start 25 seconds early or must start 25 seconds late. And front runners don't finish with 50 seconds gaps... So I would do exact second starts... Which makes the start hard work (very doable with the DSRC app)
There are other handicap tables like Great Lakes which could be better if on a big lake rather than sea
I hadn't really thought this design out until this thread ... but each boat's performance can be "normalized" by either the total time of the 1st place boat (or avg-time or last-boat-time). Formula is ...
RelativeFinish = (BoatTime - FirstBoatTime)/FirstBoatTime
Then put all the boats in one list and sort.
One could normalize against the avarage time for each fleet too .. if one thought that fairer.
So each boat is then scored a relative performance within the fleet and then combined.
If normalized by the FirstBoatTime, each OD winner would have a score of zero. That tie is broken by the largest relative gap to 2nd place.
So the winners of each OD fleet gets 1/2/3 .. then rest are sorted in order.
I'd say this is NoR territory - I might not want to Handicap race.
If it's purely handicap - Section 15 should imply have a sentence like "Places will be calcul ted using the RYA Portsmouth Yardstick Scheme, using average lap times."
If you are planning first Oppi, first ILCA 6 etc, you need to be more careful. A lot of people will simply take the highest ranked Oppi in the overall results table. But you could also filter only the Oppies and take their times as places and use that. It can give different results. It depends what you want the race to achieve
It is a time on time system. it is unnecessary to use complex average lap calculations. Merely apply the PY to each boats elapsed time for the course.
Yes, the NOR should state that the PY handicap is being used and should state precisely which 9of the numerous available) PY lists will be used, or if there are only a known limited number of classes racing, could list the PY that will be used for each.
The 420 and ILCA should be doing same no of laps they are similar handicap. The Oppi will do less distance. Average laptime is what every sensible club that uses PY for its weekly racing is doing. You just count the laps and either manually divide time by laps or better - let the scoring software (Sailwave for example) do it for you.
If everyone does the same laps... Not a problem. But if they don't you can't add that plan in later.
Run a handicap race before the pursuit then you will know the oppression average lap time. Deduct some laptimes from their start time.
You can also do a personal handicap race. Work out personal py based on performance in previous hc races. This will give back of fleet to win something a huge boost to them.
Knock off last digit of py and the 3 remaining digits are the start numbers in half minute intervals.
Divide that by 2 to get minutes.
Eg comet dinghy py1208 is 120 so 60 minutes.
Round up last digit if 5 or more so comet is 121.
You can use Sailwave free of charge from www.sailwave.com, which will do all the calculations for you. The 2026 rating files for Sailwave are available to download from the website, or you can specify your own. You can use it to calculate average laptimes or there is a program for using it with Pursuit races - the choice is yours - Drop me an email if you want a quick demo or have any questions about Sailwave - There is a Sailwave User Group and a lice chat on the website if you need help
Jon
This is a very interesting topic, as these regattas are designed to integrate children into club programs.
I would like to continue developing a practical case study...... for example, what would be the dimensions of the regatta course?
Cheers !!!
Cata
For you
8m 420 class flag up
6m P flag and laser flag up
4m poppy flag up 420 flag down and 420 start
2m laser flag down and laser start
0m poppy flag down and poppy start.
With 5 4 1 go the earlier fleets were going through the start area 2nd lap before all starts finished.
We use that for all races to avoid confusion.
- are there implications of P never being down (i.e. you don't have the final minute)
- how a general recall works
321 gets round the first and takes 9 minutes instead of 8 for 3 fleets with no overlapping sequence or 5 minutes with overlap. Although I don't think that's long enough to be getting into position.
General recall is a PITA mid sequence TBH. Slightly easier to work with for no overlap.
Thanks !!!!
Cata
Typically it's a triangle or trapezium. But could be anything
Size - a lot of this will depend on the size of the race area available! But you also want to get plenty of mark roundings. And you don't want it so short a course that people are through the start line before fleet has crossed the start.
We typically aim for 30-40 mins races with fast boats doing 8-10min laps
Just found it works with a capital O.
Personally I am a big fan of average lap scoring when boat performance is widely disparate. The disadvantages of having Optimists and 420s completing the same number of laps, or alternatively sailing the same distance (as in a pursuit race) have been well rehearsed above, and I won't repeat.
There is a bit of a knack to running an average lap race though, and some pitfalls for the unwary.
The RC need to be competent. Especially in windy conditions. Its easy to be caught out by a boat that has a prolonged capsize and is a lap behind. You need good lap charts and more than one of them. Its easy to miss someone.
Like anything statistical the average lap time calculation works best with plenty of laps. I advise setting a course that has the slow boats doing at least three laps.
Although you could, say, set 3 laps for Oppies, 4 for ILCAs and 5 for 420s my preference has always been not to set a fixed number of laps, and just shorten as required. However that's always been with a wide range of classes on the water. It may well work with just a few classes.
Shortening course is definitely an art. Ideally the leading boats of each fleet will be fairly close and you will shorten in front of the first leader. It is good to mix up which fleet is finished first over the course of a series.
Major weather changes can really confuse things, if the wind looks like dropping or a front is coming in be ready to shorten course before it arrives.
BNo doubt there's more but that's what occursoff the top of my head.
As far as I can see nobody has explained why their suggested format is better than simple PY or what the disadvantages of simple PY are.
As I understand it, the only advantage of Average Lap is where there are social or administrative reasons for wanting all classes to spend about the same time racing.
Can you discuss the disadvantages and advantages please?
There aren't to my mind, any serious disadvantages for the competitors, other than it precludes long distance single lap races and requires the start line to be the finish line. The RC needs to be a bit sharper and clued up, but not unreasonably so. Especially need to get the shorten course right, because you can't shorten in the middle of the course.
Is it a fair* race if the wind is 5kts for the first 45minutes and picks up to 15kts for the remainder but your 420s are all finishing in 5kts and the oppies get a blast for the last lap
Is it a fair* race if you are an Oppie having just sailed race 1, for 60 minutes flat out in 20kts and done the same number of laps as the 420 who finishes 15 minutes ago, and as soon as you finish the class flag is hoisted for race 2, giving you no break while the 420 has had time for a drink and a snack and to adjust some sail settings
If you add something like a Musto Skiff into the mix have they actually agot bored and gone home after Race 1 because they do more time waiting to race than racing
*Many will argue nothing about PY is fair. But without average lap, you are adding another reason for people to hate it.
Some do all 3 but some come for a specific race so starting times of races are important.
Average lap times allows the timetable to be adhered to.
Note that until the finishing times and laps are entered into the computer do we get the results. With fixed laps, you know if you have won, but with PY the sums have to be done first.
Also, we get a huge difference in the standard of crew skill. Some are very good, but some struggle to even go upwind and keep getting stuck in irons. They sit there with the rudder hard over wondering why it doesn't turn onto the wind. The club does a lot of training and we encourage them to race to improve their skills but at first they may only do one lap when the leaders have done 8 or 9.
Coming ashore between races gives us a chance to help them.