About PaddleClub

PaddleClub is an automated handicap system for open-water paddling clubs. The core idea is to let racers measure their performance and to recognize racers who achieve high performance against their established trends.

We are community-driven and not officially affiliated with the clubs or results management systems.

Please send feedback to mike.liddell@gmail.com, or create an issue on GitHub.

The club & league system

Open-water races are not directly comparable due to unique courses and weather and so predicting expected performance for a racer in isolation is difficult. Our handicapping calculations rely on a consistent field of competitors to gather information over a series of races. Clubs that run a large number of races, such as BEPC, have sufficient data for handicapping. Unaffiliated races, and clubs with infrequent races, provide less information to establish trends. To help with this we create virtual clubs, aka leagues, by curating races that attract a common field of racers. As a result, some races are listed for both their organizing club and for relevant leagues. Each club and league maintain separate race lists, competitor lists, and handicap data. Each club and league should be considered as completely independent.

The handicap system

Par racer

Each race has a par racer — the finisher at roughly the 33rd percentile by finish time. The par racer's adjusted time defines the benchmark for that race.

Adjusted time

Your adjusted time = your finish time ÷ your handicap. A handicap of 1.0 means no adjustment. A handicap below 1.0 means you're a faster racer — for example, a handicap of 0.85 means you typically finish at 85% of the par time. Above 1.0 means slower than par.

Updating your handicap

After each race your handicap is updated based on how your adjusted time compared to par:

SituationUpdate rule
Race 1Handicap set to your time-vs-par (no prior history)
Race 250% blend of old handicap and new result
Faster than expected (≤100% of par)30% shift toward new result
Slower than expected (>100% of par)15% shift toward new result
Outlier (>10% outside prediction)No change — result ignored

The asymmetry (30% vs 15%) means the handicap responds faster to improvement than to a bad day.

Points

Overall points are awarded for finishing position (10 pts for 1st, 9 for 2nd … 1 pt for 10th).

Handicap points use the same scale but based on adjusted finishing position. Handicap points are not awarded in your first two results (while your handicap is being established).

When a race day has multiple distance groups (e.g. Long Course and Short Course), points are weighted proportionally by group size. For example, if the Long Course has 26 racers and Short Course has 13, the Long Course winner earns round(10 × 26/39) = 7 pts and the Short Course winner earns round(10 × 13/39) = 3 pts. This keeps the total points available per race day roughly constant.

Race Organizers

PNW Regional draws from events organized by:

Data Sources

Race results are collected from several timing platforms depending on the organizer:

References

The BEPC handicap system uses the same multiplicative time-correction approach as established sailing clubs.