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