Dart 15 Forums

The new PY for Dart Una has dropped by 8, how on earth has that happened? We certainly haven't seen Darts noticeably faster over the last year at Halifax. Is this a feature of the new boats being raced in mixed club fleets?

Probably a feature of not many mixed clubs with Dart 15s sending in their results.

Not just us that's changed. Dart 18s have gone down by 15. Hurricanes have gone down by 11. And in fairness, a bunch of monohull classes have also had their PY lowered. If you want to "class hop" to go with a favourable PY change - your only good bet is a Topper 4.2 or a Graduate.

Class hopping is definitely an issue here. If people have more than one boat, they jump in the one that suits their handicap on that day. So results are skewed in favour of that boat. If people only race Dart 15s in mixed fleets when it's force 4+ then it will appear to be a fast boat.

We do the same at Shanklin in the very small number of races where we can race sport mode against unarig. People are more likely to put a jib on when it suits the conditions so skewing the results towards Dart 15 Sport being a fast boat.

Brading Haven Yacht Club give you the handicap of the fastest boat you sail in a series regardless of what you sail in an individual race. That generally puts people off jumping from one boat to another.