National Handicap for Cruisers (NHC) 

NHC replaces PY racing for Cruisers. NHC aims to promote a single National Handicap scheme for Cruisers, giving clubs a uniform scheme that can be easily adopted for their racing. NHC hopes to promote participation in the sport and works alongside IRC.

RYA Talks and Presentations

The RYA hold regional talks and presentations for its affiliated clubs to explain in depth; the ins and outs of NHC along with giving specific examples of how the scheme should work for clubs in that region. This also gives club officers and members the chance to get their questions answered face to face. For more information on upcoming talks please visit the page to the right "NHC Talks"

 FAQ's

The RYA have received a variety of common questions regarding the NHC scheme and have now published a list of frequently asked questions. These can be downloaded in the downloads tab to the right.

NHC Base List Updates.

The RYA have had a large volume of requirements to add boats to the base list. The base list will be updated on a fortnightly basis whilst the scheme establishes. After the initial rush the base list calculator will be made available to all clubs that request it.

NHC Goes Live!

The documentation surrounding NHC and the NHC base list are now available from the download bar to the right of this page. Clubs are strongly advised to read through the "Rules and Guidance" document before running racing with NHC. For more information please email technical@rya.org.uk or phone 02380 60 4200.

Clubs using NHC will need to download one of the approved software for the adjustment of handicap numbers and to dual score races. These downloads will be available on the relevant results software pages shortly.

What is NHC?

For the last 5 years or so the RYA Technical Department have seen a continued decrease in the level of data submitted by clubs for the use of allocating National Portsmouth Numbers for Cruiser classes which has led to demise in the National Portsmouth Number List for Cruisers & the use of PY by Cruiser clubs.

At the End of 2012 the RYA Technical Department started to investigate a new solution to Cruiser Racing and are rolling out NHC which is a performance handicap scheme. NHC uses known concepts used internationally in many other countries to analyse and adjust handicap numbers. NHC handicaps individual boats as the no two cruisers are the same through elements such as sail size and configuration, number of crew, weight of the boat, equipment on board, engine type, number of berths, etc etc. The handicap numbers are Time Correction Factors (TCF’s expressed as 1.000 for example) which are used to calculate a boats corrected time (the time used to score a race) allowing clubs to dual score with IRC.

Whilst NHC welcomes all types of boats it is designed for cruiser racing and looks to protect and promote core cruiser racing and will actively discourage “Grand Prix” style racing yachts from dominating club cruiser racing.

How does it work?

NHC comes in two tiers; “Club” and “Regatta”.

“Club” is to be used by clubs holding racing over a number of days/ weekends (for example Wednesday evening racing/ Sunday points series) where all the entries are from the same club(s) and generally race against the same boats in each race. In “Club”, adjustments to handicap numbers are relatively gradual.

“Regatta” is intended for a series of races held over consecutive day’s either over a weekend or a weeklong series. Entries in a regatta may not all be from the same club. The adjustments to handicap numbers in a regatta series will be relatively quick so as to get handicap numbers relatively accurate after the first couple of races.

All boats taking part in a NHC race for the first time will need a starting handicap. Starting handicaps will be allocated by the RYA in the form of the “Base List”. The Base list will be published when the scheme is released at the beginning of March 2013. The Base list will be created from a rating formula using “boat show” data such as sail area, hull length, beam, weight etc. The RYA will publish base numbers for around 1200 designs for clubs to allocate to their boats. If a design is not on the base list and the RYA do not have data to create a base number for that design, the club will be given  a “rating calculator” to calculate a base number to enable all to get onto the water and get racing!

When a boat first takes part in a club race it will start on its base number. After this it will develop its own personal club number which it will use for future races. If a boat moves to a new club it will go back to its base number and will develop a new club number as it will perform differently against different boats and in a different venue.

When a boat takes part in an open regatta it will always start on its base number as it will be racing against a different group of boats  and may be sailing at a new venue. After the regatta is finished  its end handicap is discarded and it goes back to its club and picks up its club handicap number and continues club racing.

All a club need do to use the scheme is use one of the approved results software’s and input some basic information about each race such as the boat/ sail number and elapsed time. The results software will then automatically calculate the result and the new handicap to be used for the next race which will automatically be applied to the next race. In other words nothing different from what happens now.

Dual Scoring

The RYA positively encourages clubs adopting NHC for their cruiser racing to dual score with NHC and IRC. This is to mean that ALL cruisers/ yachts race together and are not split into an NHC/ IRC fleets. Instead all start together and race the same course and finish at the same finish line (except where the fleet is too large to fit on 1 start line the group may be split into fleets based on speed differences).

This allows the bottom of the fleet to take on the top! All boats that are interested in racing in NHC can check the NHC results and the winner will get a prize. The boats that are more interested in racing under a rating (as opposed to a handicap) rule and that have a valid IRC certificate also get a result scored on IRC and can check these results with the winner receiving an equal prize. The key to dual scoring is that both sets of results and both winners are treated equally!

 

NHC Base List Excel Doc