In the April 2023 issue of Seahorse, IRC Technical Committee member Claude Charbonnier explained the inputs for the calculated Hull Factor.
The hull factor that appears on our IRC certificates is sometimes viewed with caution by owners and designers alike. While it is fairly easy to correlate the geometric data of a boat with the rating obtained (the dimensions of the hull, weight, dimensions of the sails and so on), it is less obvious when it comes to determining to what extent a boat is a pure racing yacht or, on the contrary, a cruising boat with a more general profile. So in an objective mathematical manner how do you tell a raceboat from a cruiser?
