Handicap for SandSailor
PHRF and Portsmouth allow boats of different design and size to race against each other in the same event. The alternative is "one-design" racing, where everybody has the same design boat, e.g. Laser, Star, Catalina 22, etc. To be considered a one-design fleet, I think you need at least five boats of the same design. In mixed fleets, faster boats get a handicap for being faster.For example, the Hunter 23 has a PHRF rating of 234 while a Catalina 22 has a PHRF rating of 272. To beat the C22 in a race over one mile, the H23 has to finish at least 38 seconds (272-234) ahead. The margin changes proportionally with the distance, i.e., for PHRF to work, you need to know the length of the race.Under Portsmouth, each boat is assigning a number expressed as a percentage. Its elapsed time (ET) for the race is divided by this percentage (converted to a decimal fraction) to yield the corrected time (CT). The fastest corrected time wins. For example, Portsmouth number is 96.3 for the H23 and 97.1 for the C22. If the H23 finished in 60 minutes, its corrected time would be (60/0.963) which is 62.3053 minutes, or about 62 min. 19 sec. If the C22 finished 15 sec. after the H23 (ET=60.25 min) its CT would be (60.25/0.971) which is 62.0494 min, or about 62 min. 03 sec., which is good enough to beat the H23. The math is pretty simple and the race committee is freed from measuring the course.If you're going to be doing much racing you should know the numbers for your boat under both systems, as some race organizers like PHRF and some like Portsmouth. I hope that was helpful, considering I learned it earlier today.PeterH23 "Raven"