For our Club Racing Series ECHO will be replaced by a Howth Performance Handicap (HPH) in Classes 1, 2 & 3. HPH will also be used in the Non Spinnaker Class.
Boats in Classes 1, 2 & 3 will receive a starting HPH value which is based on their performance in club racing for the 2004 season.
The ECHO revision process will continue in the background as Open Events will remain unchanged. HPH will not be used in Open Events.
Why change from ECHO ?
| The main reasons for having a specific handicap system for local club racing are : |
| 1. | The TCfs produced relate to boats that race against each other on a regular basis. |
| 2. | The TCF Revision is rapid. |
| 3. | The TCFs are not influenced by the performance of boats from other clubs. |
| 4. | Changes or corrections can be easily implemented by the Club Handicap Committee if a valid case for change exists. |
| 5. | ECHO frequently fails to produces a materially different set of results to that of IRC. |
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It is felt that the way performance handicap calculation was done before the introduction of ECHO is more appropriate to local class racing. It is less complicated and directly reflects the average relative performance between a group of boats over a series. For want of a term to describe it, we call it the Howth Performance Handicap (HPH).
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What is HPH ?
For each race a handicap is calculated for each boat relative to the scratch (fastest) boat in the race.
These handicaps give each boat the same corrected time as the scratch boat in the race and is therefore the handicap which each boat requires to win the race.
The handicaps for each race go from 1.000 for the scratch boat in that race and range downward from this value.
At the end of a series each boat's race handicaps are divided by the number of races it completed, to give an average handicap for the series. This average handicap is applied to the next series.
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How is HPH different from ECHO ?
An amount of sophistication was built into the ECHO handicap calculation to take a number of factors into account and to enable a degree of handicap standardisation between clubs using the system.
The logic and mathematics of ECHO are fine. But the difficulty is that comparison is made between ECHO and IRC results and frequently there is little material difference between the results from the two systems.
HPH is a basic calculation of relative handicaps between a bunch of boats competing together. It is purely a local class handicap in that relative handicaps are meaningless outside the class a boat competes in.
HPH is by no means a magic solution which in itself will guarantee a materially different set of results to IRC as there are other factors which also impact on result placing.
However, the transparency and simplicity of HPH will enable you to more readily see why you have the handicap you have and see why your boat arrived at a specific placing in the results.
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