help_outline Skip to main content
Herrington Harbour Sailing Association
Promoting sailing on Herring Bay and beyond
 

Racing Discussions

Handicapping vs. VPP Ratings
Author Last Post

John,


You're not wrong, but there is an important distinction your missing with any handicapping system such as PHRH--they don't care about any of those things for a "baseline rating" because they don't need to. Give me 20 very different boats with reasonably competent skippers and 20 races and I'll give you a handicap that will work for those 20 boats when sailed against each other. Give me another 50 races and I'll give you a pretty good handicap that will work outside that fleet reasonably well.


The problem you are keying in on here is how you arrive at a handicap rating when you don't have all the performance data... and that's where the rater and subjectivity comes in and I think we end up frustrated. Basically, it's up to someone who is likely not a Naval Architect (but hopefully trained by one) to look at the observable properties of a boat and compare it against other boats that have roughly the same properties and make an assumption that their rating should be about the same. But what properties? SA/D? L/D? L/B? Wetted Surface Area? Full displacement or light displacement? Froud number? Metacentric Height? LWL? And where do you get all that data? Is there a standard way to calculate those things (in some cases there is not... SA/D being one of them)? Is it accurate?


Any good rating system should eliminate subjectively. Both styles do that... but only if you use them correctly and as designed. It's just math... it's the people that use that matter :)



A few observations and I although I may have disagreements, I wont to assure people that I know the difference between disagreement and dislike.


Besides the rating I have on my boat, my issues with PHRF, I have always had is that it was not designed to be applied to Top end boats. But even still it tends to work. If we take for example the difference in rating systems two boats in our fleet that race distance races. One rates higher in PHRF, the other in ORC. So there is no perfect solution.


For the bottom of the fleet I think that there are other issues. PHRF assumes that displacement has no effect on the potential performance and assumes that changes in sail plan have the same effect over the entire range of wind speeds.


ISSUE #1 – PHRF assumes that displacement has no effect on the potential performance

ISSUE #2 – PHRF assumes that changes in sail plan have the same effect over the entire range of wind speeds.


We all see this on the water. In a Spin Class do we see boats, no matter how well sailed, leveled off by scoring showing a balanced fleet? I believe that no matter the wind speed or direction, results should not be forgone conclusion. Is this an issue and does it hamper participation by some?


https://charlestonraceweek.com/race-info/orc-explained


Sail fast, Live Slow

Happy Weekend All!


As we go through what seems to have become our annual discussion about ratings, I took the liberty to put together a short (less than a 1 1/2 page) white paper that talks about how they work 'under the hood' since on the surface all we (as owners/skippers) tend to see is a number we get with a cost associated with it.


I think it is actually very healthy to have this conversation every year, especially as our fleet continues to grow and evolve. What was "right" for us one year may not be "right" for us another (and can easily flop back again the following year). But this is one of the things I love about our club--we have this discussion frequently and challenge ourselves to be better... We survive (and thrive!) by active discussion in forums like this, and it only helps when we 'level set' our knowledge.


Here's to the next 40 years--

Jason

Return to Forum
Please Support Our
Corporate Sponsors

Slideshow
Sponsor Logos

Herrington Harbour Marina
Ritter Realty
SpinSheet
Ullman Sails
Yacht Canvas, Inc.



Our Affiliations: