Personal Handicaps

Some time ago I asked if anyone was aware of personal handicaps being used in club racing, and I was deluged with replies from club and class officers around the country. I was amazed, because I have never had any personal experience of any of these systems, and yet it seems there are many variations on the theme.

Of course, the aim is to give everyone an opportunity to win something. In a perfect handicapping system, an absolute beginner would have an equal chance of winning a trophy as the club champion. It is really a way of finding the best improver in the club, and obviously, the better you get at sailing the harder it is to improve.

The Frensham Connection

For a tiny sailing club, Frensham Pond in Surrey has turned out a huge number of successful dinghy sailors who have gone on to compete in top class international competition and even the Volvo Ocean Race. In my short time writing Rolltacks, Frensham has certainly come across as one of the most proactive and imaginative clubs in the country. Vice commodore John Marriott describes the club's Personal Handicap system. "It gives novice helms the chance to compete on an even playing-field with the more experienced helms. This is applied in one of two ways:

a) During the summer season, Class races are divided into major and minor points series; all finishes are timed and the first and last race of the day counts for both series. A Personal Handicap is then applied so there is a winner on finishing order (which counts for the major series) and a winner on personal handicap (which counts for the minor trophy alone). Personal handicaps are devised by Class captains on the basis of finishing times for the previous season's class racing. The approach is flexible but typically a scratch helm scores +10, whereas a pure novice scores 0, and
this Personal Handicap is added to the finish time. Races typically last an hour. Whenever you win a race your handicap goes up by two minutes, up one minute for a second and remains unchanged for a third. Last and last but one are adjusted by -2 and -1 minute respectively so the system takes account of steady improvements throughout the summer as well as 'lucky breaks'.

b) These Personal handicaps are also applied to Class Pursuit Races which are interspersed amongst the Sunday class racing from time to time as well as on certain Bank Holidays. Start times are devised on the basis of Personal Handicap as well as Portsmouth Number. In an ideal world everyone would cross the finish time simultaneously, irrespective of the boat they sail and their own personal abilities. I'm glad to say that has never happened when I've been Race Officer!"

If anyone wants to know more about Frensham's approach, John invites you to contact him via email at john.marriott@tesco.net.

The ScientiFFic Approach

Richard Jones wrote in to explain a more scientific approach to personal handicapping, used for the last two years by the Flying Fifteen fleet at Datchet Water.

"We have boats of widely differing ages and crews covering a broad span of capabilities. Although the Flying Fifteen class association promotes a Classic Fleet and a Silver fleet, this has never worked well at our Club for some reason. So instead, we decided to try a Personal Handicap system - as you say, very similar to a golf club. Our system uses calculations of precise personal PYs and does not simply make a fudge adjustment.

"The end result of the system we use is that for a 13-week series, each team is awarded a personal Portsmouth Yardstick number which is used to evaluate their race results in the series using the standard Portsmouth Yardstick system. A by-product is that for each race in which a team competes a PY is worked at the end of the race which is the actual PY sailed/achieved during that single race. At the end of each series, the "seeding committee" resets the PY for each competing team based on the record of actual PYs sailed in the series which has just finished. This is simply based on the arithmetic average of PYs in all races sailed, with a small damping factor to stop the result moving around too drastically.

Notice of Pace

"At the start of each series, the old and new Personal Handicaps are posted on the notice board so that everyone knows how they have been improving (or not!) and how it looks for the next series. The series points for adjusted times are awarded in the same way as the regular race results based on the adjusted finishing positions. Each year we plot some graphs to enable the teams to see graphically how their handicap has been doing across the twelve-month period.

"To make all this work you need to nominate one ‘scratch team', to whom you allocate the official class PY number. Ideally you would choose a team who race very regularly and usually do well. We are lucky in having an obvious team to choose, and everyone else's actual PY sailed is calibrated relative to the scratch boat results."

Richard and his fellow Fifteeners use a set of spreadsheets that they designed for the purpose, and he estimates that calculating the results and emailing them to the fleet takes no more than 15 minutes each week.

Another club that relies on a ‘scratch team', but takes an altogether more informal approach to personal handicapping, is Midland Sailing Club. Commodore Steve Watson explains: "We have a peer vote/negotiation about the relativities between boat teams. So the best team is on ‘scratch' handicap (zero) and all other teams are given personal handicaps accordingly, based on a complex informal assessment of talent and equipment, in lumps of 15 seconds. No real analysis here, just a felt fair assessment of relativities.

Trial by brewery

"These handicaps are re-evaluated by the fleet members over a pint at the start of every quarter new race series. So, for example, the National Championship 2000 winning Merlin Rocket (my boat)sailed by a plonker (me) is assessed against another older boat with a much better helm and crew. I get 60 seconds additional time over my rival! So within the Merlin Class we have a "scratch" result based on position on water and a "handicap" result based on adjusted time. The slowest teams have a very real chance of winning the handicap. 

"But you can guess at the intensity of debate at handicap revision ‘stitch-up' time over several drinks! Good excuse for a social event at the Club too. You may agree that our system is similar to the golf handicap system. In some ways it is, although my recollection of golf is that you had to put your cards in to get your handicap changed. In ours, it's about perceived performance not driven by administrated actual results, so the ‘ringer' cannot exist for long. It works and we like it."

It must make for a hilarious evening hearing the pros and cons of why Joe Bloggs should be pegged back 90 seconds, and Bloggs arguing why it should only be 30. But this system does require everyone to have a sense of humour about their racing and not take it too seriously, I would imagine.

Redesmere Sailing Club's treasurer Robert Eastcott says the Cheshire club has been using personal handicapping for their pursuit races for some years now. "Fixed time handicaps (in effect time penalties for the better sailors) are set using a formula based on average points from performance in recent club events. Anyone just starting racing therefore has a handicap of 0, which increases as their performance improves (more like weight penalties in horse racing than golf handicaps, perhaps).

"One twist which we have introduced for one of our one day events which has proved to be quite entertaining has been to increase the handicaps for the first three in each race as the day progresses. This is applied race by race - win a race and you start the next with a greater handicap - 90 sec for a win, 60 sec for second and 30 sec for third for a 60 minute pursuit race."

The ladder system

Robert believes the system works well for pursuit racing but less so for variable length handicap racing, where he feels a percentage-based handicap system might be more effective. However, the club is just about to embark on another interesting experiment, which seems to borrow from the typical squash club scenario. "We are planning to introduce a ‘race ladder' this year to give added interest, particularly mid-fleet; challenge someone one or two above you to turn out together in a Club - take his or her place on the ladder if you beat him/her on the day)."

Redesmere Sailing Club is also thinking about introducing a buddy system of the kind that has become popular in some national fleets, most notably the Fireballs and some of the RS classes. This involves the best sailors in the fleet being paired off with some of the slower sailors and passing on their knowledge, talent and experience. I have not heard of this happening at club level, but if anything this sharing of experience should work even better on a club basis than on the open meeting circuit, as there is more potential for continuity and ongoing collaboration.

Pearls of wisdom

Robert has obviously given the whole thing a good deal of thought and he has a few general observations that are worth passing on:

  • q "Not everybody wants to race and this needs to be recognised by the club, particularly the "serious" racers - all you can do is encourage and make the transition as easy as possible.

    Demystify racing for beginners - essentially it's sailing around a set course in company with your mates. Have fun and pick up the nuances (and tensions) as you improve.

    Forget handicaps initially - if you finished behind Fred on the water last week but beat him this week you've achieved something.

    Pursuit races can be better for beginners - less stressful on the start line and less lonely for longer for the less experienced / those with slower boats. Short races have the same effect.

    Encourage your juniors.

    Build in encouragement and support for beginners and improvers.

    Involve your experienced racers - persuade them that they have to work at bringing more people into Club racing, even if in the short term it sometimes detracts from their own racing.

Meet - and beat - the Stars

One of the great things about sailing is the opportunity to race against Olympic champions - and even beat them. The results of the recent Glyn Charles Memorial Pursuit Race in Chichester Harbour remind us that even without personal handicapping the very best sailors are vulnerable to the vagaries of the wind. Fresh from winning Spa Olympic Regatta with a day to spare, Iain Percy and Steve Mitchell rushed back from Holland to race their Star to 70th place in the regatta, and other Olympic hopefuls like Paul Brotherton and Mark Asquith in their 49er also failed to make an impression on the top places. A dying breeze favoured the slower boats, with Ian and Jane Porter's Wayfarer taking the top spot, and the Sunsail holiday. Not that Ian Porter is any slouch, having built and sailed numerous Wayfarers to championship victory, but handicap racing is certainly a great leveller, and never more so than in the tricky Chichester Harbour.