Some very skilled sailors told me that in a handicap race you will have an advantage if you are in a fast cat (like a f18) on slower cats (like h16s) no matter how well the handicap system used is. This because you can reach wind shifts faster etc.. And it seems that in all big handicap races (texel... )the fast cats rule the slower ones, also on corrected time. Is this simply dued to the level of the crews is higher in fast cats, or do slow cats have a disadvantage?
Oh, and has someone heard anything about macca's Super-Taipan and how it's doing against Tornadoes, skiffs and other nice little high tech beauties?
Macca's Taipan cleanly falls into the category of "high tech beauties". Now...to the question.
Handicap racing - especially when used for distance racing - does not specifically favor one design over the other. Rather, it's the conditions of the race that favor one boat or another and it can favor the Hobie 16 over the F18 just as easily as F18 over Hobie 16. Handicaps are designed to average a boats potential over an upwind / downwind course. Distance racing, however, is rarely and even distribution of upwind and downwind sailing and because of that, the handicap fails when trying to apply it to boats that have wide differences in their respective upwind and downwind potential. Additionally, if the wind strength changes throughout the distance it will also favor one boat over the other.
Suppose the distance race is upwind the entire way and the spinnaker boats are not able to carry their spinnakers - the corrected time will heavily favor the non-spinnaker boats. The opposite is also true.
Suppose that after the front of the fleet finishes, the wind were to die - this would favor the faster boats that were able to finish before the wind died. Suppose the wind got stronger after the faster boats finshed, this would favor the more slowly rated boats that were still on the course. This can also happen on a buoy course race.
Point is, handicap racing (any type) is even more inaccurate when applied to some types of distance racing. The best way to avoid major inaccuracies is to group similar boats together in classes to be scored separately. For fair scoring, spinnaker boats should not be scored against non-spinnaker boats and if the fleet is large enough, it would make sense to break things down even further.
