South West Yacht Time Correction System
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The South West Yacht Time Correction System (abbreviated to YTC) has been developed over recent years to assist the wide variety of yacht-types within a club or port, and these are mainly cruiser-racers, to race competitively and fairly. The system is free to use and is based on the statistical models developed by Professor Linda Wolstenholme, of the Cass Business School and Emsworth Slipper SC.

The implementation team began slowly, by introducing it into a couple of clubs in Falmouth. Since then the system has gradually been adopted by a number of clubs in the South West of England; we are delighted that this year the system has been adopted by the Dartmouth Royal Regatta for handicapping the non-IRC yacht racing classes.

The ethos throughout the process is to develop a boat's number in a fair, open and transparent manner, if necessary bringing the yacht's skipper into the discussion where appropriate. The system also aims to provide a mechanism whereby skippers of any skill level may feel encouraged to race their boats at all levels of racing and in all fleet racing formats. Overall, it is intended that the YTC process will assist the achievement of fair racing as required by the Racing Rules of Sailing. Full details of the process are in the Policy and Procedures Document in this website.

The system has always been examined at the end of each racing season with a view to making improvements, and feedback from clubs, skippers and yacht-owners is a fundamental part of this process. During the winters of 2017/18 and 2018/19 a number of improvements to the system were introduced as a direct result of this feedback, including:

• Standardised web-based entry and sail measurement forms
• In-house sail measurement
• Each competitor receives a YTC certificate, showing the YTC number for the season and the yacht and sail measurement data on which the number is based
• Spinnaker sail areas and hull overhangs are included in the derivation of the YTC number
• Automatic entry of boat data, where there is no change in a boat's data from one season to the next

The work begun last year to put the entire application process and supporting database on-line has now been concluded successfully. There will always be risk in software roll-out but following the successful parallel running of the on-line system last season, the administration team is now confident to take the big step. This will make the system much easier for the end-user. Users of the system should note in particular that there have been no changes to the underlying handicapping system this winter and the team wishes to emphasise that the personal touch, whereby yacht skippers can, if they wish, be fully involved in the handicapping process for their boats, will continue.

The YTC team hopes that all users of the system have an enjoyable & rewarding racing season in 2020!