Sailboat races pretty much fall into two big categories: “One Design” and “PHRF.” Most races in SL involve One Design boat classes such as the Tako 3.3, where all the boats are essentially identical. Even Wee Tiny Takos and Tako 3.2’s usually aren’t welcome. That’s where PHRF steps in. PHRF stands for “Performance Handicap Racing Fleet.” It’s a system that handicaps different boats so they can race against each other.

For example, the NYC Sunday Big-Boat Races are not One Design, since they welcome any serious, sail-powered vessel. The races usually end up with a large fleet of Trudeau Yachts, but other boats such as the Tetra 35 have always been welcome in the spirit of PHRF. However, since some boats are scripted faster than others, it’s important to come up with a practical handicapping system that levels the playing field across the fleet.

Toward that end, over the past month several sailors have been collecting hot laps data on the NYC B1A course using a variety of Trudeau boats. Hopefully, if skippers sail the same course under identical conditions in a variety of different boats, the lap times may provide a convincing basis on which to compare the performance different sailboat classes. Here’s a spreadsheet of the current hot lap results; a larger view of the data is here.

The “Handicap Hotlaps” results so far have been pretty interesting, and are consistent with the boat builder’s scripting predictions as well as the on-water racing sailors’ gut impressions. If you look at the spreadsheet and the discussion on the forum, it looks like a Larinda Schooner is convincingly about 15% faster than a Trucordia Yawl, and an ACA32 is around 30% faster.

As more lap data gets posted, it should be possible to make interesting predictions and closer comparisons. Although all the data collected so far comes from the Trudeau Yacht group, skippers are welcome to post data for any boat class that can use the start line and race wind.

If you’d like to help collect some hotlaps data for the handicap, here are some guidelines:
1. Post your hotlaps, comments, or Q’s on the “Trudeau Handicap Hotlaps” thread.
2. Use NYC B-1a as your Hotlaps Race Course. Most Big-Boat racing skippers are familiar with it, and it includes all points of sail.

3. The windsetter should be set for hotlaps. In other words, while wearing your NYC tag get close to the windsetter and say “/44 predef hotlaps“. The windsetter will reply with something that tells you the wind is now: dir: 5, spd: 11.000000, dir+-: 0, spd+-: 0.000000, rate: 1.000000 .
4. When you post your hotlaps results, please enter your hotlap time, as well as the boat you use, etc, etc…. just like regular hotlaps.
5. Since we are trying to compare the performance of different boats on the same course, skippers should post what they consider to be their “good” finish times, not just their “absolute best” times. A “good finish time” would be the time it takes the skipper to complete the course without making mistakes and without excessive lag. If a skipper does several laps and comes up with fairly consistent “good finish times,” they should post each of the scores, not just the best one.
6. It would also be helpful if skippers could post their results sailing multiple boats. Since many big boat racers own a variety of models, this should not be a problem.
7. Don’t worry about the “Start time.” The handicap comparison should be based on the actual lap time. In other words, the Finish Time minus the Start Time.

Any data posted will get added to the comparison spreadsheet. Who knows? Once we have enough data to do handicaps, maybe we can start planning a fleet-wide “PHRF Cup!”