Small Boat Handicapping Questionnaire 2020
Laura Graham
Do you currently race your small boat in a handicap or rating system?
71% of respondents said Yes.
29% of respondents said No.
What kind of boat(s) do you sail?
28% of respondents mentioned thistle.
21% of respondents mentioned laser flying.
12% of respondents mentioned scot.
8% of respondents mentioned sunfish.
The following is a word cloud for the most commonly mentioned types of boats that were sailed.
What US Region do you predominately Sail in?
The top 3 small boat sailing regions are: 1. D (24%) 2. E (16%) 3. C (13%)
The top 3 small boat sailing regions are D (24%), E (16%), and C (13%).
What System do you Race Under? (select all that apply)
59% reported that they use the Portsmouth System.
30% reported that they use the PHRF System.
4% reported that they sail One Design.
Other reported items that could be improved upon include the following:
| What System do you Race Under? (select all that apply) |
|---|
| Other |
| One Design |
| One Design Racing |
| Not racing yet |
| SCHRS |
| Handicapped Racing Sucks |
| IFDS |
| Age based. Newer boats get scorned |
| Archipelago rally rating |
What Scoring System does your Club Use?
The majority of respondents use Spreadsheets, followed by Regatta Network or Sailwave.
27.40% of respondents do not know what system their club uses.
The types of systems that respondents reported using are shown below.
| Freq | % Valid | |
|---|---|---|
| Spreadsheets | 60 | 28.85% |
| I do not know | 57 | 27.40% |
| Regatta Network | 36 | 17.31% |
| Sailwave | 20 | 9.62% |
| Yacht Scoring | 13 | 6.25% |
| Other | 5 | 2.40% |
| Regatta Toolbox | 2 | 0.96% |
| App A2 | 1 | 0.48% |
| Club Spot | 1 | 0.48% |
| Di it myself. Use formula. | 1 | 0.48% |
| Manage 2 Sail | 1 | 0.48% |
| Manual score sheets | 1 | 0.48% |
| Multiple | 1 | 0.48% |
| nothing right now | 1 | 0.48% |
| Notice of Race | 1 | 0.48% |
| Pencil/paper | 1 | 0.48% |
| Phlotilla | 1 | 0.48% |
| recently started using Clubspot | 1 | 0.48% |
| Regattaman | 1 | 0.48% |
| SailRacer | 1 | 0.48% |
| Some combination of the above scoring systems | 1 | 0.48% |
| Spreadsheet | 1 | 0.48% |
| 4 | NA | |
| Total | 212 | 100.00% |
What do you wish you could improve with your current handicapping system?
21% reported we could improve Scoring.
32% reported we could improve New Boat Ratings.
17% reported we could improve Submitting Results.
22% reported we could improve Speed of Rating Updates.
Other reported items that could be improved upon include the following:
| What do you wish you could improve with your current handicapping system? |
|---|
| Have there results based on actual time spent sailing and not an hour race. |
| All of the above |
| Other |
| Overt categorizations |
| Ease of getting boats rated and onto the starting line |
| None, we don't sail handicap |
| I'm fine with portsmouth |
| Considerations for wind velocities |
| Other class rating which seems incorrect. |
| We don’t race handicap |
| Nothing |
| Boat Tracking |
| Paraolympic rules not mentioned |
| See below. |
| fairness |
| Institute a rating system |
| Fun! |
| It’s totally made up FY of the race. All of the above. |
| Catamaran vs monohull consistency |
| Less politics |
| Series scoring |
| More potential to race dingys against other types of dingys |
Please provide any other feedback you wish to share.
75% of thoughts were identified as positive.
A content analysis of the comments revealed the following major themes:
| Theme | N | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| Need Help/Educate | 18 | 25.4% |
| Correctness | 18 | 25.4% |
| Need/Importance | 14 | 19.7% |
| Reporting | 12 | 16.9% |
| Growth | 11 | 15.5% |
| Current/Updated | 10 | 14.1% |
| Complexity | 9 | 12.7% |
| Pursuit | 6 | 8.5% |
| New Boats | 4 | 5.6% |
| Legacy | 3 | 4.2% |
| Downloadable / Remote Usage | 3 | 4.2% |
| Local Involvement | 3 | 4.2% |
| Universal | 2 | 2.8% |
| Flexibility | 2 | 2.8% |
| Bigger Problems | 1 | 1.4% |
Key comments included:
No results are posted but they are announced. There is no transparency.
Need more grassroots - not national.
Portsmouth ratings haven't been updated in some time - I used to submit race results to the Portsmouth committee back when we used it for Vipers, Shields, Etchells, etc. but nothing was changing so we switched to PHRF.
I think it would be helpful if US Sailing promoted portsmouth to get small fleets active and racing together
We use Portsmouth for inter fleet club racing.
The current system seems like a black box. It would be nice if US Sailing helped to explain the current system and made the data freely available for clubs to better understand.
Weta fleet has data. How do we get a rating?
There are lots of new, and somewhat new boats that need to be rated. These owners want to participate in local races, but need a rating in order to race.
We've stayed away from Portsmouth ratings due to the complexity of scoring and only one sucker willing to do it.
Would be nice to have a rating spreadsheet we could easily download and use remotely
We seek a method of using Portsmouth Yardstick or anything else to develop pursuit starts for small boats. We are aware that this has been done somewhere.
Common words used in these responses are:
All of the comments that were received are in the table below:
| Thoughts |
|---|
| Acomadate wide variety of boats. |
| Age based is okay, but hard to get refined right - it is hard when oldest sailor is the fastest and 70 ulyr olds regularly beat 60 yr olds - before handicap. But there was no interest in golf handicaps. |
| Appreciate having Yardstick updates which we use in figuring our pursuit racing format. |
| As many of us transition this summer into activities and races in single sail or double handed boats a handicap expansion of the current system would allow for more racing at a local level that doesn't require larger boats. With racing for juniors all but curtailed for this summer increasing options for disparate boats would add an element of fun and sorta equality. Add to the fun of sailing and increasing options for racing by both youth and adults could be served with a system that applies to those smaller boats. |
| As President of the Penguin Class I get occasional requests for Portsmouth numbers for the Penguin. It takes a google search to find the numbers, since it isn't obvious to me how to find them from the USSA website. All of the racing we do is one-design, but important to maintain handicapping numbers for inter fleet races and those in areas without sufficient one design activity |
| Clubs in the Tampa Bay area don't offer Portsmouth racing ofter. It would really help growth of the OD classes |
| Clubs need to support OD handicap Bring your Own Boat racing to expand sailing |
| Consistently, these boats are raced by one sailor, a Navy sailor just out for the Wednesday night races. However other 16.5 sailors are a captain and a crew. In light winds, the single sailor usually wins or the two person team spends the whole time at a disadvantage sometimes out thinking the single sailor. How can we even out the competition - one person vs. two person crews? |
| DPN vs Adjusted Buford dpn. Wind range affects performance but it’s too complicated to adjust DPN. for wind. |
| Flying Scots really are not treated right |
| Happy with PHRF |
| Having consolidated race results would be a benefit to handicappers |
|
Hobie Division 7 (similar to US Sailing area K) uses Regatta network. We are happy with 1 design scoring in Regatta Network, but have not used a handicapping in that system. I've used spreadsheets to handicap a few 1 time regattas. I need help with time (minutes & seconds) equations in spreadsheets to be more efficient. |
| I also race PHRF for displacement boats, and I find the Portsmouth system to be vastly superior, and more fair. |
| I am also CRO and officiate in many regattas and club races. |
|
I don’t sail handicap but did in Colorado. I would like to see it around here to get more people out. I like seeing all the different types of boats. Dinghies Whidbey Island, the small boat counter part to Whidbey Island Race Week, had a OOAK fleet and it was cool to watch. For the question below, I don’t belong to a club. I’m not sailing much right now because I’m in nursing school. |
| I have been racing one design with rare exceptions for the past 10 years. I frostbite my Laser during the winter and sail J24s during the summer. There is not a whole lot of adult Laser sailing on Long Island during the summer. I do wish I could get more adults out to race Lasers during the summer or get involved in a decent sized dinghy fleet that is using a handicapped system. |
| I have requested a formula for a Portsmouth Pursuit Handicap System from US Sailing. I know one club which uses a PHRF Pursuit System. I don't know how to set up a system for Portsmouth boats |
| I need to find the time to help our Portsmouth Committee assign provisional ratings for boats without ratings. I have a Portsmouth to PHRF conversion equation which I should publish. |
| I own three Phantoms in addition to one Sunfish, one Laser, one Opti, one Capri 26, etc. I would like to see my Phantoms be allowed to join the Sunfish fleet Club races with a handicap (Portsmouth?). Basically, how do I approach the Club Sunfish friends to allow Phantoms first to race then later to score then later to possibly compete with Sunfish? |
| I prefer small dinghy one design racing - fun and easy to know where you stand in the fleet |
| I race only against other Thistles so handicap systems are not needed |
I score the Portsmouth Fleet (DPN) - it would be great if a scoring program like St Pete Scorer would accept elapsed time and output corrected time and place. Even better if it would calculate corrected time behind first boat.And, it would be very cool if it would work backwards, telling us how to stagger a pursuit race start with a given set of classes (slow boats start before faster ones - goal of 1 hr race all finishing same time assuming perfect sailing skill.) |
| I think it would be helpful if US Sailing promoted portsmouth to get small fleets active and racing together |
| I used to sail Portsmouth Yardstick more, when i lived in Alabama, but in Louisiana, PY doesn't seem to have as much traction, which makes mixed-dinghy fleets less interesting here than elsewhere. |
| I wish that ratings were updated more frequently based on results. |
| I would like more opportunities to sail my 110 in San Francisco Bay more, but unlike other parts of the Country, the SF PHRF Committee will not allow 110s to have a rating. We predate PHRF sailing in SF Bay by about 60 years, so I feel that this decision is very arbitrary on their part |
| I would love a system to handicap small boats and Dinghys (420s, Lasers, Optis). It would be great to be able to have all these classes do fun races and be able to compete against one another on a level playing field. |
| I’d like to know if Portsmouth Yardstick is a viable option for us. |
| I've been racing an RS Aero for 5 years and US Sailing still has no Portsmouth numbers listed for our class. In fact, it's very difficult, to even find the Portsmouth numbers on the US Sailing website, nearly impossible. |
| In the recent past we would have been happy to help revitalize the small boat racing scene through our input. Unfortunately, as of late, the club has struggled to simply survive. We are working hard to rebuild the fleet by offering a summer "learn to sail" course through our local Adult Education school. I'm a US Sailing Level 1 instructor. We're hoping....!!!!! |
| Include a rating for all boats; Portsmith is the best; would help with Portsmith |
| Inconsistencies should not exist for the same boat. |
| It would be nice to have a formula readily available to convert from RY Portsmouth to US Portsmouth. |
| its a great opportunity to have fun we need more of it. |
| Just by asking what area, and I didn't know shows how irrelevant us sailing has become. |
| Love to see more widespread use so many small boat fleets have more opportunities to race instead of larger one design fleets. |
| My observation from many years of racing are that the correction numbers aren't always doing a good job to keep up with the evolution of design changes to sails and/or rigging of each individual class. Additionally, the change over points for different wind speeds (using the current Beaufort ranges) are too large of a gap, such that some classes of boats can be both advantaged or disadvantaged within the same wind range, depending on winds being near the higher or lower end of the range. |
| Need more grassroots - not national |
| No handicappinhg |
| No rating system is perfect. The rating systems must be reasonably easy to apply and perceived as reasonable fair. PHRF is the easiest to apply but boats are often picked because of "their number". Portsmouth is marginally harder to apply (but not bad). I don't hear complaints from our small boat fleet using portsmouth |
| No results are posted but they are announced. There is no transparency. |
| Not a big user but our club uses Portsmouth for one annual holiday regatta in December for about 20 dinghies from Thistle through Naples Sabot. Over the years one class seems to dominate. Sailing Director has forwarded results but not had a response. My volunteer time is spent on offshore/keel boats and I'm not in a position to commit our club but this one event is a great tradition for everyone to race together at the end of the year. |
|
Not sure where you can simplify it, but where possible make the process as straight forward as possible. Many times we are using "warm" bodies and explaining the procedures to calculate the Portsmouth rating system gets confusing. We have one race which is an approximately 30 mile spinnaker run in which we use the Portsmouth rating system. |
| Nothing. Not much variety of small boats at CYC. Mostly just one designs. Maybe on the Lake at Sail Sand Point. |
| Our fleet is mostly one design RS Visions but they don't make them any more so we have the odd balls thrown in. We are looking at keeping score for our Tuesday night race so we should factor a handicap to the slower boats. Could I say maybe to the next question? |
| Our pursuit races rarely last half an hour. As a result, it is biased against Thistles as the rating system is applied. It would be nice if the amount of time could be a factor in computing the results. |
| Perhaps this view is shared by every racer, but it's always seemed to me that the PHRF rating for Flying Scots expects them to be significantly faster than they actually are. |
| PHRF does not, in my opinion, address two key concepts, 1. is related to displacement vs planning boats (really Old vs New boats) 2. symmetrical vs asymmetrical designs |
| PHRF is a strange beast since it is localized and not controlled by US Sailing. I am embarrassed to admit that our club is not a member of the US Sailing PHRF fleet, with less than 10 active members, it is hard to justify the cost. |
| Phrf is too corruptible and not all that accurate. Older boats get cupcake ratings and newer custom boats are rated to unrealistically fast rattings |
| PHRF needs to take Drysail vs Wetsail into consideration into an otherwise good rating system-probably 1 to 3 seconds/mile. A drysail vigin bottom is faster than a painted bottom kept in the water! |
| PHRF ratings seem to rate similar type boats fairly, i.e. production racer-cruisers. The problem is with boats without much history and only a few boats racing, and custom boats. |
| PHRF seems arbitrary and archaic. Needs to be overhauled. - sails and deck hardware have made a lot of advancements. |
| Please make some effort to popularize this type of racing. One Design is obviously a better form of racing, but this is the core of your audience. |
| Portsmouth on US Sailing doesn't tell you if the boat's standard rating is with or without a spinnaker (do I adjust if it sails non-spin or do I adjust it it sails spin?). I know this for most racing dinghies, but not for the small cruisers--Catalina 22 and similar boats. |
|
Portsmouth Pursuit Race Scoring Bruce Cattanach <it.cattanach@gmail.com>; Fri, May 15, 9:01 AM (1 day ago) to Nathan Nathan, Hello and Good Day to You, I've been in contact with Stu and a number of US Sailing individuals regarding a method of scoring Portsmouth Pursuit Races. I recently did a JOTDOWN request: See below: Stu recommended that you would be the correct person to get me a "formula" for using pursuit racing with Portsmouth class boats. Any help would be greatly appreciated. -Bruce ---- Bruce Cattanach Level 1 Instructor Trainer it.cattanach@gmail.com +1 [ 678 ] 971 5867 |
| Portsmouth ratings haven't been updated in some time - I used to submit race results to the Portsmouth committee back when we used it for Vipers, Shields, Etchells, etc. but nothing was changing so we switched to PHRF. |
| Portsmouth should have two capabilities, one as it is now and one that can be adjusted to the skipper's skill level (like a golf handicap system) |
| Portsmouth, while no longer widely used, seems to work fine for our club. We have a wide range of skippers who also do double duty as RC. Whatever is launched, needs to be easy and not need specific technology. Our results are calculated on the water, with a calculator, and the chance of technology getting wet, not being charged and dying, or having an operator who isn’t versed in whatever system, are potential stumbling blocks. If an internet connection is needed to do results, it is highly likely that it will be a failure. |
| Primary/Secondary boats understood, others seem to not change. AT our lake Thistle just win all races. Based on results a true DPN would be closer to 80.0 |
| Race one race with multiple starts on 10 Wed. evenings in summer for last 52 summers, averting 45 boats and 60 to 80people for low price dinner.Emphasis is participation. No registration or entry fee.Race committee and rescue boats are volunteers. Race course in place for whole season.course is clockwise or counterclockwise.four race marks allows us to have three different courses.End of season awards gives any participate a burgee glass if they have 70% attendance. Then there are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd each class Then we have seven perpetual awards |
| Raced from 1970’s to early 1990’s some on my boat, and others for offshore skills, fellowship, tee shirt and fun! Parties at end |
| Ratings that are based on the boats and not how well the boats are sailed. |
| Relative boat speeds vary and are dependent on wind speed. |
| simple software for computing corrected times in Portsmouth system. Sorry can't help. elderly, not computer saavy, booked full w other volunteer work... |
| Simplified way to explain how the system works to new sailors, phone app shareable amongst club members that live updates race day and series scoring. |
| Since I'm usually the only Portsmouth Fleet Boat on the line, I get better competition on Wednesday evenings when we do "Pursuit" races, which are Portsmouth in reverse, staggered starts based on handicap ratings. |
| Thank you for this initiative & wanting to provide more support for small boat sailing. |
| Thanks for taking this on. I sail one design but I have done PHRF RC and it was challenging, particularly in a multi fleet environment. Please keep the RC in mind as you formulate a plan. |
| Thanks for your interest. |
| The challenge that we have with handicapping boats is that we have so many different form factors (multihull, symmetrical dingy, scow, asym dingy) that no one feels good about the system or the results. The growing feeling is that PHRF/Portsmouth is a kind of Sailing Socialism. I think dividing the systems into rational groups that recognize that different types of boats are, well different, and that they should be grouped into their own category even if that means they race fewer boats. |
| The current system seems like a black box. It would be nice if US Sailing helped to explain the current system and made the data freely available for clubs to better understand. |
| The portsmouth rule has a great deal of potential, but could use some updating & re-vamping. Club personnel needs to be incentivized to complete training in the importance of submitting timely information, and in turn, US Sailing should invest in increasing education & awareness about the rule and its nuances. It is highly frustrating in this technological environment how many clubs are still using excel for scoring. |
| The yardstick rating for the Interlake is way off. The Interlake fleet is consistently faster than its rating. Our club is also exploring a method of handicapping skippers within fleets. |
| There are lots of new boats available that in order to race,and build fleets need ratings. |
| There are lots of new, and somewhat new boats that need to be rated. These owners want to participate in local races, but need a rating in order to race. |
| There are some interesting new dinghies from Topaz and RS that are not handicapped but should be. We use PHRF for the keelboats and Portsmouth for the dinghies |
| There needs to be a better understanding of the relationship between TOT and TOD systems. |
| Tracking would offer a fail-safe timing of each competitor as well as enhanced safety. |
| U S Sailing members with the exception of myself are deathly afraid of dinghy sailing on the Salton sea. |
| Updating or keeping Portsmouth Yardstick numbers might be helpful to develop racing in fleets that don’t have many similar boats. It could also lead to stifling the development of stronger one-design fleets. |
| Very old subject. "Nobody reports." Still, the redesigned Raider, WETA, Aero, Melges 14, foiling Moth, up to date I-14 we just make our best guess. I help establish Portsmouths for Florida's Mug Race. Do the best we can. Sometimes use UK Portsmouth for comparison. Dave Ellis |
| VX-1s will win everything in our region no matter what. |
| We have data for 6 years of Laser and Force5 Portsmouth Handicapping |
| We have perhaps the only Kestrel fleet in North America, which makes handicapping somewhat difficult. The existing numbers seem to work well for the old kestrel, but the newer boats are much faster. |
| We just do a Wednesday Night pursuit race. Do not know where the data originated. Time corrections favor small boats way too much. I assume it is a small lake issue. |
| We mainly use it with our single-handed boats. We use it with the Thistle just 3 times a year. Our race committee is made up of member volunteers. We turn over the times to one member who has the conversion tables. |
| We need an actual rating for the Weta trimaran. It’s comparable to the Hobie 14. As a US Sailing Race Officer, I have data for more than 10 races that include the top sailors in the fleet. I need someone to submit data to at US Sailing to Establish our Numbers at the various Beaufort levels. |
|
We run a number of large handicap events in the UK, including the Great British Sailing Challenge and Selden SailJuice Winter Series, seeing over 2,000 people racing in 90+ classes. We have been working on dynamic handicaps that tune themselves automatically to wind and sea conditions. This gets around the issue of classes like 420s and Fireballs doing very well in windy conditions but struggle to get any where near their PY handicaps in light winds We would be interested in sharing our findings |
| We sail on a small mountain lake. Our race courses are with fixed marks, L shaped course, very rare is there any windward leeward. Most boats rated with spinnakers don't have spinnakers or learning how to use. It is hard for any rating system to work well. Heavier boats get hurt more often, because they can't respond or take advantage of the shifty short puffs. |
| We seek a method of using Portsmouth Yardstick or anything else to develop pursuit starts for small boats. We are aware that this has been done somewhere. |
| We seem to have an issue where boats like F18's and this year a 49er always score very well by a big margin. Maybe we are using things wrong but it has happened like this for many years. I don't set up the scoring although I have had to help with it that last couple years so maybe I need to know more about it. :( - answer to the next question is more like "maybe" I am already quite busy. Name is Ken Swetka |
| We tried PHRF tot for KB but we found that it was worse than portsmouth. I saw that jerk from the offshore council that thought that we should just let GB take over. No thanks. Our club has been working to support Portsmouth since 1972? |
| We try to race hobie cats against flying scots and have found that multihull tables do not line up with the monohull tables. |
| We use Portsmouth for inter fleet club racing. |
| We'd like to understand and document how we can score boats "as one fleet" that have multiple sail plans (e.g. Laser 4.7/Radial/Standard, or Aero 5/7/9) |
| We're a very small club with infrequent, informal racing (2 small regattas/summer, plus occasional Laser/Aero pickup races..) |
| We've stayed away from Portsmouth ratings due to the complexity of scoring and only one sucker willing to do it. |
| Weta fleet has data. How do we get a rating? |
| While it's a necessary evil, handicapped racing is still an evil. And that's not a comment on any system, it's inherent in any non one-design approach. There's no way to account for things like changing conditions - a fast boat benefits from a dying wind, a slow boat benefits from a building wind- even if you get the ratings "perfect". |
| With all due respect to those, who sail handicap, I prefer one-design racing. |
| Would be nice to have a rating spreadsheet we could easily download and use remotely |
| Would it make sense to come up with a handi capping for beginner/advanced system on a national level (volunteer use only) maybe could help more local participation. Especially with many of us who usually travel racing locally. |
| Would like to have access to free scoring and handicapping software that is recognized/sponsored by US Sailing and is a downloadable, so that we can have a "universal" scoring SW package that is cross-compatible with all other sailing centers/regions. Easy access to a kept-current handicap DB. |
Would you or your Club be willing to help revitalize the small boat handicapping racing scene in the United States?
74% of respondents said Yes.
26% of respondents said No.
