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In one design classes the first boat over the finishing line is the winner as all the boats are similar. However Cruisers are of many different designs. Some boats are built to be seaworthy if caught out by severe weather crossing the Atlantic. Other boats have bilge keels to allow them to dry out and stay upright. Other boats are built as racing boats which optimise speed against a rating system and have varying sizes of sails etc. This means a handicap/rating system is required that can be multiplied by or divided into the elapse time to decide who wins.
Results Calculated using Yacht Time Correction (YTC) Ratings
In all Medway Yacht Club races the results of all boats are calculated by adjusting elapse times by the YTC rating for each boat. The good news is that obtaining a YTC is free. To obtain a free YTC handicap you need to submit the overall and waterline length, the beam, draft and weight of your boat plus sail areas and a few other bits of information and in a few days, you will receive a free YTC handicap rating certificate. Click here to Obtain a YTC Rating. Click to have a look to see the information that is required. Most of this information for production boats is available online Sail Boat Data. For those of you with something a bit rarer you may need to do some measuring. We can help with measurement if necessary. YTC ratings are provided for boats flying a spinnaker and also without a spinnaker called a white sail rating. Boats opt to fly a spinnaker or not on their entry form for a series.
Results Calculated using International Rating Certificates (IRC) Ratings
The blue-chip handicap system is the International Rating Certificate, IRC, system where boats submit a lot of measurements, and profiles to the Royal Ocean Racing Club RORC plus a fee. They are issued with an IRC rating calculated by a closely guarded secret formula. Prizes will also be awarded on IRC handicaps where sufficient boats with IRC certificates enter our events.
Results Calculated using MYC Club Ratings
We are aware that some of our members are interested in learning how to make their boats sail fast but are hesitant about joining in our races for various reasons. They have cruisers that are built for stability rather than racing or are older boats. They don’t want to spend a fortune on fancy sails. They are short handed. They don’t like the melee and chaos at the start of a race and would prefer to hang back and start when it is safe to do so. To enable these members to also participate and stand a chance of winning an additional MYC Club Rating is under consideration. This would not replace calculation of results using YTC and IRC ratings but would produce results in parallel to them. Prizes would also be awarded based on the results of all boats calculated with these ratings.
These ratings would look like YTC ratings. They would be adusted when we have a track record of the sailing speed achieved by boats over water in races where tidal steams do not play a significant part. In the 2024 Spring Series and 2024 Wednesday Evening Series we were careful to have races where the effect of tidal steams were minimised and have built up a feel of how to set these ratings. For new boats for which we do not have a track record we would utilise the research by the RYA on how different boats perform which is published in their NHC base handicaps. We would use these base handicaps to identify an initial MYC Club rating. Once we have a track record of how the boat actually performs in races where the tide does not play a significant role, we would adjust these handicaps accordingly.
Classes
Where we have sufficient entries we may split the entries in classes so that the faster boats can have a longer race and the courses are not constrained by the time it will take the slower boats to finish. We would probably use the MYC Club Ratings to do this since it better reflects the speeds achieved by the boats in practice.
