| The RTYC system uses a mixture of the ECHO system established in Ireland and the progressive system established in Australia.
The concept is that all competitors have equal chance to win a race when they start. Hence the handicap over time takes into account not only the boats theoretical performance but quality of sails, quality of upkeep of say the hull, and quality of the crew. A similar concept to golf where a poor golfer can play with a seasoned golfer each having different handicaps and they each have the same chance of winning the 18 holes.
|
| |
| All boats initially start using a modification of the published Echo handicap for the first race. We modify the handicaps so that boats don’t confuse the handicap with a IRC handicap. We apply the following formula on the ECHO handicap |
| Handicap=1000/ECHO handicap rounded to a whole number. |
| After the first race the figure will go up or down depending on your performance and this will continue to change after every race using the same principle. The lower the number the faster the boat has performed. The higher the number the slower the boat |
| |
| How the RTYC system works |
| |
| First Race |
| • Count number of boats that finished the race. Halve it and find the middle boat on corrected time.( if an even number then it is average of the 2 mid boats). |
| • Then all the boats handicaps are calculated to finish at the same corrected time as the mid boat to give a Calculated handicap. (If the boats sailed with those handicaps they would have all finished equal). |
| • All boats are then adjusted for the next race to that new handicap but with a maximum percentage change of 1.75% up or down. |
| Why 1.75%? This was selected as a reasonable middle of the road change to give variation and create competitive racing. We are starting with this figure to see how it goes but would vary this if we feel it is justified. |
| |
| Subsequent races |
| • As before count number of boats. Halve it and find the mid boat |
| • Calculate the handicaps for all boats to have finished at the mid boat corrected time (Calculated Handicap) |
| • The new handicap for a boat for the next race is the average of the “Calculated Handicaps” of all races sailed in the series with a maximum change from the last race sailed of 1.75% |
| • The Handicaps for all boats that sailed is then slightly modified so that the total of the handicaps of all boats that sailed in the last race sailed equals the total of the new handicaps for boats going forward. The concept is to reduce handicap drift. |
| • This is the handicap that is used for the next race. |
| |
| In theory if boats are sailed relatively consistently, after a number of races, boats should be finishing close together on corrected times. |
| |
| Below is an example of the handicap rating of one yacht over a race series and how it is calculated. In race 1,2 and 4 the yacht did well against its handicap, finishing ahead of the mid boat, in race 3 and 5 it came in bottom half. |
 |
| The actual handicap figures may have been slightly different in reality as all boats ratings are technically adjusted to avoid handicap drift. |
