I have what may seem like an odd question. I want to score a one design fleet, ILCA, over the course of a long series based upon the performance of the skipper. Much like a golf handicap, the handicap is based solely on the performance of the skipper. The idea is to give a challenge to the top end of the fleet while giving hope to the bottom end of the fleet as they improve.
So I am thinking, score with Echo assign every boat an opening handicap of 1.000. How badly could this go wrong?
If Echo is not the answer, can you suggest a handicap system for one design boats that is based upon performance of the skipper??
I have tested NHC with the starting handicap for all boats of 1.000. It worked great. The performance of the previous race impacted the handicap of the next race. But, the start time and finish times for each boat must be recorded. I am getting pushback from RCs who work at one-design events.
Is there a way to compute performance handicaps without recording finish times? Any ideas for a formula that might work?
We use a more manual method with a fleet of around 12 mixed classes. After each day’s racing and scoring has been done, each race winner has 10 knocked off their current handicap for subsequent races, 7 for each second and 3 for each third. We do the opposite for the other end of the fleet. Corrected times become very close after eight or so races!
Someone did once (probably about 10 years ago may be a few more) develop a formula for what you are suggesting.
I suppose it was better than nothing but it didn’t work that well in my opinion. As the program has no way of knowing if the competitor came first by 2 mins or 2 seconds so it couldn’t adjust the rating the correct amount.
Hello,
The link below goes to a description of a one-design “handicap scoring” scheme for a long-series one-design racing we tried a few years ago. We had about 20 boats in the series. Overall, the results were mixed, in my view, but maybe some more tweaking might make it work better.