Handicapping--we owe time

Handicapping --  We owe time & an interesting blog--Wednesday, July 17, 2013 –The Portsmouth Handicap System is used on our races and I finally got around to looking at the race results for last week.  The news was not good.

When we race, there are many different kinds of boats: C-Larks like mine, Lasers, International 470’s, 420’s — and so on.  Some of these boats are inherently faster than others.  To make the racing more interesting and fair, each kind of boat has a handicap under the Portsmouth rule.  After you finish the race, your elapsed time to finish the course is corrected, and all the boats have their finish adjusted.  That is the corrected time.  Last week we were beat by an International 470; he beat us by more than we knew. 

Our C-Lark rating is 96.8; an International 470 has a rating of 99.7. 

To calculate corrected time you take your elapsed time and divide it by your handicap number, then multiply by 100.  Lower handicap numbers owe time to higher handicap numbers. 

So--on the first race last week we finished in 17 minutes and 22 seconds.  The 470 finished in 15 minutes and 29 seconds.  He beat us by 1 min 53 seconds.  BUT when handicap was applied, he beat us by 2 min 24 sec.  So we owe him 1.8 seconds for every minute we are out there sailing.  In a 30-minute race we could beat him by 50 seconds and still lose by 4 seconds.  Clearly we will have to do better in the future than we did last week.  I do believe the handicap number is probably fair.  On the down-wind legs, when we weren’t screwing up, we were able to gain on the 470.  We kept right with him when we did a good job on the up wind legs.  So—you hate to give time to a competitor, but the rating is probably fair even if we did owe time to every boat out there except the HLR.

Here is an interesting blog.  Jeff has a C-Lark and he had to rip out the entire floor of his cockpit to replace some wood.  Looks like he did a great job.

http://sailwhatcom.blogspot.com/2010/06/c-lark-14-rebuild.html 

While researching our handicap status found the following official specs for the C-Lark.  I am thinking ours was built closer to 1964 than 1979. 

Hull Type:	Centerboard Dinghy		Rig Type:	Fractional Sloop
LOA:	14.00' / 4.27m		LWL:	14.00' / 4.27m
Beam:	5.70' / 1.74m		Listed SA:	133 ft2 / 12.36 m2
Draft (max.)	3.50' / 1.07m		Draft (min.)	0.50' / 0.15m
Disp.	295 lbs./ 134 kgs.		Ballast:
SA/Disp.:	48.07	Bal./Disp.:		Disp./Len.:	47.99
Designer:	Don Clark
Builder:	Clark Boat Co. (USA)
Construct.:	FG		Bal. type:
First Built:	1964	Last Built:	1979	# Built:	1400
BUILDERS (past & present)
More about & boats built by:			Clark Boat Company