Classic Boat PY's

I agree - excellence should be recognised, rewarded and encouraged.  However, I think there are benefits in encouraging anybody who wants to sail and race and this seemed a well thought out and effective system.

The balance of the system was pretty good in this case.  At PDYC, series racing was held alternate weekends with trophy races between.  So in 1 year you had 4 quarterly series and 26 trophy races.  The helm handicap system applied to 50% of the races, but only 12% of the prizes.  Plenty of reward there for the top sailors.  BUT also, plenty of encouragement for those new to the scene and those looking to improve.

As with all sports, you look to set goals for the season.  Having a helm handicap system gives you another way of measuring it - someones aim for the season could be to reduce their handicap by 10points.  It also gives you a great guide for awarding the "most improved sailor" trophy.

I don't know if this is a system you could operate at national or open meeting level within a class that effectively, but at club level it did work.

I used to sail at Port Dickson SC in Malaysia.  They used to have a helm handicap system there for series races, with boat handicaps only applying for trophy races.  This had two very good benefits - one it encouraged sailors to do the club series as anyone who sailed better than their normal level could win the series, but the best helms still got their names on the trophies.

However, this system also lets you see numerically the difference in the suitability of a boat for the conditions and the relative skill of the crews.

For example, two sailors were generally acepted to be of equal ability, fitness and skill.  BUT their personal handicaps differed by about 3%.  This was seen to be a reflection of how suited the two classes they sailed were to the particular conditions.

A helm handicap system is very simple to manage for a club or a class, it also highlights skill differences between fleets and between classes.

This may not be the right forum but seems to be the best about PYs. I agree with the earlier suggestion that major handicap events could be used as a 'return' to aid the RYA with adjusting handicaps. As these events are (predominantly) attended by good  / top end sailors from various classes they are certainly more relevant than a return from say Puddleduck S C where the local hot shot happens to sail a Maidupclass really well thus depressing the handicap for all Maidupclass sailors but also raising the handicaps of 'whatever' classe(s) he thrashes.

Has anyone thought of actually doing the exercise - that is going to say the Grafham GP site and working out the various PYs acheived?. Do several events - last weeks Steve Nicholson and this weekends Tiger Trophy for instance and the accuracy increases.

Anyone up to the task?