Hello, my first post, so apologies if I miss something…
We run Sailwave at Emsworth Sailing Club, UK, for mixed fleets and occasional one design racing. It works well for our needs, and we use RYA handicaps rather than our own local ones.
A junior member, who’s a previous national class champion in youth windsurfers, and is now sailing the RS:X, has been doing the odd race with us. We’re struggling to find a handicap to use for him.
Fundamentally, we want to encourage him to sail - some peoples’ answer of “tell him to get a proper boat” isn’t the right answer. We’ve been using 943 (roughly a RS400), but in planing conditions, he’s more a Musto Skiff, and in light conditions, he’s more a RS200. We’ve discussed giving him 3 handicaps, based on band of wind, but that’s tough in a series, and other classes (Contender, for example) would be happy to have multiple handicaps.
At the moment, we’re taking it series by series - in some conditions he’ll win by 10 minutes, in others he’ll come last. He doesn’t care, particularly, and just wants to race, so we want to do the right thing for him, and for the other sailors at the club. We don’t want to create a handicap where he, or others, don’t race as it’s a forgone conclusion.
Im not sure there a right answer, but is anyone racing dinghies and windsurfers (of any class) together, or has some advice, please?
Thanks, Simon Langford