Hi My name is Rabbi. I sail a 1982 Hobie 18. I live on a small Island in central america. With some friends we are organizing a weekly race event. We have a Hobie 18, 17, 16 two waves and a getaway. I sail the 18 and cross the finish line 1st always. My question is, what is a simplest way to handicap. We all are out there mainly for fun we don't want to get to serious as we involve families and kids. However we all know what happens when you say "LETS RACE". It is definitely more fun when you have a chance. We are simple sailers who love being on the water. we are not trying to make this an extremely technical battle just a little more fair. Thanks for any advice.

Waves and Getaways are not going to be anywhere near as fast as the fiberglass boats. The 16, 17, & 18 are all about the same speed around the race course if they're being sailed by equally skilled sailors.

Maybe have staggered starts where the Wave starts first, Getaway starts 5 minutes later, 16 and 17 start 10 minutes after the Getaway, 18 starts 1 minute after 16 & 17. Or set up a windward mark that is 50% to 75% closer to the start line for the rotomolded boats.

Of course the other option is to use the Portsmouth handicap system and record finish times for each boat and then calculate the handicap finish, but that's probably more complex than what you're looking for.

sm

If you are comfortable sharing each other's boats you could rotate and have a combined time that you add to each week.

you could have a few "pre race" events and time each boat.

run a few rounds to get an average (i.e. the wave's avg 1 hour, the h16's avg 40 minutes for the course)

give the wave's a 20 minute headstart for the race (and each slower boat it's avg headstart before the fastest boat)

Just curious as to where you are located in Central America. I have a Hobie 18 here on the Pacific coast of Panama, in Farallon.

you can use a program called sail wave. It has handicaps for all cats. we use at my club and it works very nice for us.