Personal Handicap

Originally posted by Guest#260 They are the backbone of golf so why not sailing?

And  they are one of the many reasons I don't play golf. I've raced under personal handicaps and it seemed a supremely pointless exercise. Isn't the idea that the best sailors win? As for boosting attendances - well it won't boost mine.

Edited by Stefan Lloyd

We have thought of all of these, and they are not applicable to our situation. Does anyone who has raced under them actually want to answer the question about how they were administered?

 

There's dozens of systems of personal handicap down here in Oz. They
are, as Jim C says, a backbone of racing. Sure, they allow people who may
not be the fastest to win - that's good, it helps spread the joy a bit. Silver
and Gold fleets are good but what about the person who always finishes
at the back of Gold fleet? They never get the encouragement many people
want.

Here, where we normally sail in tideless waters on open courses, our
fleets may be less mixed up than UK fleets (that's a guess) and many of
our classes develop faster at times, because they have more open rules
and therefore we need some form of handicapping to give outmoded
boats some value.

Many clubs use the simple 3,2,1 system explained earlier. Personally I
would also increase the handicap of the last 3 finishers on handicap, or
else some people can spend a long while finishing at the back.

Others use
percentage systems, where the % each competitor normally finishes
behind the scratch (fastest) boat is averaged, with a certain number of
outlying performances dropped.

For racing under yardstick there should be no problem in having a
personal handicap consisting of the yardstick PLUS the personal handicap.
That would allow people to keep track of their progress as they changed
classes.....if you were a 1070 yardstick +90 personal handicap sailor in
one class and then changed classes and improved and became a 990
yardstick + 20 personal handicap in the next class, your personal
improvement would be more obvious than if you just went from 1160 to
910.

For an example of a system, go to Top Yacht Software

http://www.jazclass.aust.com/dsc/default.htm

which has a sample handicapping/scoring programme that includes a
personal handicapping system.


Edited by Chris 249

We have a personal handicap series run over the whole season. I think worked out thus:-  All individuals times are totalled from the previous season and compared against the best club sailor or sailors who have a zero handicap. The differences are expressed as a percentage. That percentage is then added to their boat PY. New sailors PPY's have to be guessed for their first couple of races and adjusted. Range of difference 0% to 20%.  The "Paddlers Pot" is keenly fought for and well attended. Youngsters in Toppers are first and second so far this year. Can my ego handle it  .

Edited by GK.LaserII

Sometimes - without naming names - a club will simply alter the boats' PYs to try to 'equalise' the individuals' results. Little appreciation of 'statistical significance', and seemingly unable to grasp that someone often wins because, well, because they're actually rather good (like multiple European champion level).

Personally, assuming there's a clean way of determining it, I would instead favour a parallel prize-awarding for 'most improved'. It keeps the purity of "the best" but still encourages everyone else. To most of us, a good result isn't necessarily "1st"; its "not being beaten this time by someone who beat you last time" - otherwise 95% of us wouldn't bother...

Edited by ColH