NHC

National Handicap for Cruiser Preliminary Documentation

This is built into the Sailwave program from Version 2.9.

The aim of the National Handicap for Cruiser is explained in this RYA article

The main thing to do is to remember there are 2 Versions of NHC - Regatta Mode and Club Mode decide which one is applicable.

I recommend that you get familiar with how it works using the 2 sample files (see below) before you create your own.

Now tell Sailwave that you want to use the NHC and which version.

There is now an option in the Rating system options for RYA NHC and when you select it the RYA NHC Mode appears to the right

You need to select 1 of the 4 possible options - see the following image.

For each Mode of Club and Regatta there is a option to use Internal or Ext/Debug

Internal is the simple and fastest way as everything is automatic and does not require Excel.

Ext/ Debug uses a Template similar to the SWPH program for those that have used it.

This is covered in more detail later and is used for checking the workings of the calculations, and if you are outside the UK and want to use your own rules you can modify the template to apply any rules that you want for the calculation.

Below is a sample of dual scoring using IRC and the NHC. This example uses the Aliases feature of Sailwave so the results are only entered once and both sets of results get calculated automatically

The main class here is the IRC class with the RYA NHC class as the alias

By using the Dropdown shown here or by pressing the short-cut F6 then "r"

You can see the ratings for each race and how they vary for each race

When you click the Score or the Rescore buttons of Sailwave

Sailwave scores the series and works out which competitors require new ratings calculated, these are passed to a program "SWHelper" which pops up like this:-

If the Normal internal mode is selected then you will see the Race Nos very quickly count through the races and it will disappear - It all happens in less than a second.

And Thats it - Simple!!

For Club mode only there is a re-aligned rating calculated that can be used in future similar series. Say your club has a Wednesday night series and a Sunday Series these would be 2 separate series.

Your NHC rating would be different in each as the conditions are usually different for evening racing than day racing. The concept is that at the end of the series the ratings get realigned.

This realigned rating is stored in the "seeding" field in Sailwave and is the rating that should be used for this competitor in a similar series (Say the same series next year).

This rating is updated automatically after each race but you should only use this if it is the last race of the series.

External / Debug Mode

This mode has 2 uses

Check the calculations - so there is no disputes that the program is wrong
Allows custom personal handicaps to be scored - For UK use it is recommended that you use the standard calculations although you can play the "What If" with this and you may like to make recommendations/improvements to future versions of the NHC based on the results you achieve.

When you click the Score or Rescore in this mode the same Sailwave Helper window will appear but it will also automatically open Excel with a spreadsheet similar to below. The Sailwave Helper window will be always on top.

The spreadsheet is automatically filled with all the details for Race 1. When you click Next it will step to Race 2 and so on.

If you click Last it will step through all the races and stop on the last race. Which is usually the one you are interested in. You can save or print this spreadsheet as proof of the calculations if you wish.

If you just want the results calculated and not interested in seeing the spreadsheets just click Update All.

When you close the Sailwave helper window with the red cross it will also close the Excel spread sheet and returns focus to Sailwave but it leaves Excel open in the background to make subsequent scoring faster.

A sample of the spreadsheet is shown below - Many of the cells have comments attached to them to help you understand what they are used for.

You can also see where the some of the parameters can be configured you should not change these if you want to use the NHC standard.

One area that you might need to modify is the Result Code Handling ( See top right)

Corrected time is calculated in 3 ways

Elapsed time * Rating for this Race
The Average of the first 3 finishers - Typically used for DNC
The Median of all the finishers - Typically used for DNF

You can specify which codes get treated the same as DNC and which the same as DNF

If you are interested try setting the mode to Ext/Debug and stepping through the races.

Some more fine detail for those interested

In addition to version 2.9 or greater of the Sailwave.exe there is a file SWHelper.exe which resides in the same directory as the Sailwave.exe

This contains all the rules for calculating the NHC ratings and may get updated when any of the rules/ calculations for NHC get updated.

There are 2 Excel templates also in the same directory which contain the rules for the calculations in Ext/Debug mode

SWNHC3.xls - This is the template for the Club mode
SWNHC4.xls - This is the template for the Regatta mode

If you modify these they will affect all future calculations. Each time you rescore these are copied to a name based on the name of your blw file into your working directory.

The Excel spreadsheet has 3 worksheets The first one is named "Main"

There is also a Config Worksheet which looks like this :-

This specifies where in the spreadsheet data from Sailwave is loaded and where it is read from

So if you are developing your own custom scoring system then you can adjust these here as you modify your spreadsheet.

The Third and final worksheet is a worksheet name "Sting"

This is used to handle the sting in the Regatta mode - it is simply a table of "0"'s and "1"'s that specify if a sting took place in a particular race so that it can be accessed to determine the new ratings.

Sample Files

Sample NHC Regatta Sailwave file

Sample NCH -Club Sailwave file

Club Excel Template

Regatta Excel Template

For more details please contact me

Jon