A recent IRC seminar at the Royal Southern Yacht Club (3rd March) also discussed the RYA’s new ‘National Handicapping for Cruisers’ (NHC) that replaces Portsmouth Yardstick (PY). NHC progressively handicaps boats during a race series and comes in two tiers, ‘Club’ for an ongoing series, and ‘Regatta’ for shorter open events in which handicaps are adjusted more quickly to match actual performance after just a couple of races.

PY, like IRC, is a ‘one-number’ system and remains very successful for dinghy handicap racing, but for the cruiser community it stopped functioning effectively due to lack of data. NHC is a radical change and introduces progressive personal handicapping for ‘club class’ type racing. It uses a ‘Base List’ of handicaps for known boats, and one-off boats can be added to the list by supplying hull and rig data.

A good feature of NHC is that it shares the same numerical factor system as the IRC rule thus making it understandable and comparable. An aim of NHC is to encourage boats to travel from club to club using a common handicapping system, and for it to be used in combined fleets with dual scoring under IRC. Interestingly under NHC an ‘adjusted handicap’ cannot be ‘taken’ to events away from home where boats will start again on their original Base Number.

Either way the novelty factor of progressive handicapping should see more boats turning out to have a go and the word is that the Royal Southern will be adopting the system for its Club Class. It seems likely that the other Hamble clubs will follow suit probably with dual scoring alongside their existing club system to see how things progress.
 
NHC is a radical move and uptake around the country should be keen, but one hopes that the emphasis has not swung too far in favour of a feel-good factor rather than competitive racing. For those who take their club racing seriously it might seem like a charter for dirty bottoms and tired sails but the RORC rating office that has assisted with the concept hopes that this group will move up to IRC. That will rely on convincing owners it’s worth the annual fee, and that the grand prix image of IRC is a myth.

IRC is a rigid ‘one-number’ system but to deliver good club racing handicaps often need adjustment to reflect local conditions. Thus a combined NHC & IRC dual scoring regime that aims to be a cure-all could leave a gap in the middle, relegating some competent sailors to mediocre results under either system.

Although NHC is targeted at club sailors perhaps some old pro skills could re-emerge. Kicking off a series with an impressive first win might not enhance your chances of overall victory so heaven forbid that ‘sandbagging’ to reduce a winning margin could become part of a strategy. The RYA recommends the use of the conventional series points system for scoring, but this writer feels that aggregated corrected times for the whole series could produce a different and possibly fairer outcome.



© Jonty Sherwill

For more details on NHC and the base list – www.rya.org.uk