Portsmouth Yardstick

The Portsmouth Yardstick is a handicapping system that allows boats of different types to race against each other by applying handicap ratings derived from statistical results of many races.

Portsmouth's effectiveness depends directly on the quantity of race results submitted. Attach your Sailwave results (.blw) file to an e-mail to theChair of US SAILING's Portsmouth Committee, Darline Hobock,  hobockd@aol.com 

The US SAILING Portsmouth Yardstick document is compiled, published, and copyrighted by US Sailing. The most current files can be viewed at  www.ussailing.org in several parts:

• Active Centerboard Classes:
• Inactive Centerboard Classes: Includes boats no longer racing frequently
• Active Multihull Classes
• Inactive Multihull Classes
• MH Modification Factors
• MH Weights
• Keelboat Classes: About 40 boats including Ensign, Etchells, Sonar, Star, & Yngling
• Offshore Classes, A-E: Classes whose names begin with letters in 1^st part of alphabet. For example, Andrews 26, Capris, Catalinas, Express 27, etc.
• Offshore Classes, F-N: Farr 40, Hobie 33, J/22, J-24, Macgregor 25, Merit 25, etc.
• Offshore Classes, O-Z: O'Day 19, Olson 25, San Juan 23, Santana 20, Ultimate 20, etc.
• Windsurfer Tables

Portsmouth handicaps have four numbers associatted with them.

• The first is the "DP-N" or number for unrated conditions. Use this number only if the wind strength cannot be estimated.

This is followed by numbers for

• light air (Beaufort #s 0-2),
• moderate (Beaufort #s 3-5) and
• heavy (Beaufort #s >5).

Portsmouth Handicaps from 2001 (Pdf Format)

2005 Sailwave Portsmouth Handicaps (CSV file) Right click then click save

For assessing Portsmouth Handicaps in Sailwave it is necessary to input wind strength here is a brief explanation of the Beaufort Scale