A couple of weeks ago on a Chat session I was asked, by a South African user, if Sailwave could score using World Sailing Empirical Handicap Scheme for Yachts. They could not see this rating system listed as an option on the Ratings tab of Scoring System. The reply was yes it should be possible using an external spreadsheet.
From World Sailing website
The scheme is intended to permit yachts, generally displacement boats with keels, of varying designs to race against each other and after racing determine, by calculation, the race results by excluding the performance differences of the boats themselves. The scheme is an empirical handicap scheme, that is a scheme where after racing the relative performance of each boat – their handicap, is determined from the times it took each boat to complete the race.
World Sailing provides this scheme to any race organiser who wishes to use it. It is intended to operate in isolation at local/race organiser level requiring no input to or from World Sailing or elsewhere. World Sailing does however offer users a basic method of handicap allocation to a boat for use in its first race.
There are the are 3 links on this page - World Sailing - Ratings and Handicap Systems - a description, a sample race result spreadsheet and a spreadsheet for calculating an initial TCF rating.
After a couple of days using an Excel spreadsheet template, RYA NHC, supplied by Jon Eskale, a spreadsheet template was created.
Hopefully , it will all work for the MSC Week 2025 from 7th to 11th July 2025 in Durban , South Africa.
If anyone is interested in using the external spreadsheet and getting the accompanying documentation, then please ask.
Hello Huw,
I’ve just seen your post re the WS EHS. As I’ve been asked to transfer some handicap races from another (private) scoring system to SailWave I’d be most interested in having a look at the Excel template created for the EHS system.
Many thanks for the WS EHS spreadsheet and documentation. As it is based on the 2013 NHC template I just wanted to check that it is conpatible with the latest SWHelper.exe file 1.11.1.0?
Hi Huw / Jon,
Just wanted a say a massive Thank You for your assistance with helping me use the EHS rating system (Huw for creating the template and Jon for enabling SW to use these external files), it has worked wonderfully.
Whilst using your excellent EHS template I’ve noticed that if there is only 1 competitor in a race then the template errors, or rather gives that entry a huge -ve figure for the following race and carries that forward for the remaining races. Is this expected behaviour, and if so what is the reasoning behind this?
Nice to know someone is using the external Excel spreadsheet I developed for World Sailing EHS.
The Excel template I created, with input from Jon, implements the WS information but that does not include any guidance on minimum number boats in a race. So it needs to be enhanced to allow the minimum number of boats in a race to specified like the RYA NHC & Irish Sailing ECHO systems.
Would that enhancement be just a configuration change, or an Excel coding change?
And, would that be down to you or me, if I can work out where to make that change?
Whilst using your excellent EHS template I’ve noticed that if there is only 1 competitor in a race then the template errors, or rather gives that entry a huge -ve figure for the following race and carries that forward for remaining races. …
I have made a change to the spreadsheet. So I can test please could you send me the Sailwave file which was giving you an ‘unexpected’ results?
A quick update on the Excel external spreadsheet. It has now reached version 7.
I made change to fix the problem outlined in the earlier message and allow a user to specify the minimum number of boats with an elapsed/finish time for the rating calculation for a race to be completed. However, I overlooked the possibility of a user setting the minimum number of boats to 1.
Since then I have had an email from the South African Sailwave user, I created the original Excel template for, providing their solution to the issue with new rating/handicap value when only one boat has an elapsed/finish time. I have incorporated their change into the Excel spreadsheet to deal with situation of only one boat in a race with a finish/elapsed time, even if the minimum number has been set to 1.
I have sent emails to the two users who requested the Excel template with the latest version attached. If anyone else would like a copy then please ask.
, it will all work for the MSC Week 2025 from 7th to 11th July 2025 in Durban , South Africa.