South West Yacht Time Correction System
Home Page

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. It is based on the statistical models developed by Professor Linda Wolstenholme, of the Cass Business School and Emsworth Slipper SC.

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 have been introduced as a direct result of feedback received from clubs and individual users of the system, 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

Much work has been carried out this winter in order to put the entire application process and supporting database on-line. This will be a significant step forward but the risks involved are obvious. The administration team has decided to run this new system in parallel with the existing system during the 2019 season with a view, if all goes well, to rolling it out in time for the 2020 season.

The YTC team hopes that all users of the system have an enjoyable and rewarding racing season in 2019.