The Off Soundings Club is a yacht racing organization with a membership of approximately 500 experienced racing sailors. Most of the membership is based in Connecticut, Rhode Island, Long Island, Massachusetts, New York State, and elsewhere in New England. The club does not operate a shore facility, but concentrates on managing two high-quality weekend race series per year, spring and fall, for its members and their invited guests. Spring racing, held in mid-June, occurs in Block Island Sound. Fall racing, held in mid-September, occurs in eastern Long Island Sound and Gardiners Bay.
About the Competetion:
"If you don't know how to lose, the penalties for past winners will teach you humility and the social graces of getting beaten. It's a wholesome and fun weekend for everybody racing. You go out and race harder next time. Whether it's fog or rain or calm or gale, it's smiling faces in slicker suits, or shorts or sweater; it's old friends and new; it's something very special; it's Off Soundings and it's got an awful lot of very good sailors and good sportsmen."
Past Commodore: Eliot H. Porter
TCF, TOT AND PENALTIES
Results from the Off Soundings Club (OSC) Spring and Fall Series are counted toward awards for OSC regattas and those of the Eastern Connecticut Sailing Association (ECSA).
Results are based on Corrected Time (CT) using the Time on Time system. This is calculated by multiplying the actual Elapsed Time (ET) of each boat by her Time Correction Factor (TCF). The Off Soundings Club calculates the TCF using a boat’s PHRF rating and any Penalties (PE) earned from previous series in the following formula. TCF=(600/(480 + (PHRF-(2*PE)*.8)) . CT = ET x TCF.
Penalties are assessed for the top 3 finishers in each series. A series 1st garners a 15% penalty, 2nd 10% and 3rd 5%. The maximum penalty any boat can carry is 45%. Effectively, a top 3 finish for a series results in an OSC penalty of 8 seconds per 5% of penalty to a maximum of 72 seconds for the next three series. These penalties are removed in the order they were assessed.
For example, if you won the Spring Series in 2011, you sailed Fall 2011 with a 15% penalty, Spring, 2012 with a 10% penalty, and Fall 2012 with a 5% penalty. In the Spring of 2013, the penalty is removed. Should you have won again in the Fall of 2011, your new penalty was added to the previous penalty and stays with you for 3 more series or until Fall 2013.
In the Class / Entry List each boat is listed with the current PHRF rating displayed without penalty, the current PE and the current TCF calculated with PE. That TCF will be used to calculate CT for this Series. When ECSA and OSC Perpetual Trophies results are calculated, the TCF without OSC Penalties is used, which may change the results.
Now that you have absorbed the above...135 boats entered the 2013 OSC Spring Series and were divided into 13 classes. The entry list for Class A is shown below, and with your newly acquired knowhow the handicap system should be easier to understand.
