Royal Yacht Club of Victoria Yearbook 2020

as racing yachts have gone from
just
displacement boats to
traditional
craft that can rise on foils to
high-tech
speeds of 45 knots, so too has
reach
evolved from a paper
handicapping
record-keeping exercise to an
based
used to be the domain of math
It
lovers of numbers, statistics and
types;
records. And brave souls. Verbal keel-
by disgruntled boat owners
hauling
boat size or cost with
equating
expectations imbued the
performance
with another layer of ‘colour’ to
job
the pencil and ink in the
complement
book.
handicapper’s
John Duffin. “The
Commodore,
only does what you tell it …
computer
the grumbling part hasn’t
so
changed.”
is reflecting on the enormous
John
he has seen, and been a part
changes
in his 30 years as club handicapper
of,
handing over to Gary Fell at the
before
used to be an exercise book filled
“It
numbers, calculations, boat
with
and accumulated
measurements
of boat designs and
knowledge
says John. “Today it is
performance,”
You can adjust handicaps
software.
a key stroke, although you still
with
to input accurate data from race
have
R Y C V Y E A R B O O K 2 0 2 0
“Actually, that part hasn’t changed,”
H E L O V E O F
T
E A S U R E M E N T N O
M
one of Australia’s longestserving
muses
handicappers, RYCV
A N D I C A P F O R
H
O H N D U F F I N
J
B Y B R A D C O L L I S
end of July.
automated computer function.
results and race conditions.”
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