You'll need to consider a form of reduced high points for races where there are fewer entries. I.e. a win in a race with 20 competitors, is more of a challenge and worth more high points than a win in a race with 5. 

Thanks for your comment, I'm trying to make sure I understand the ramifications of 1 point per boat that raced vs 1 point per boat registered in the series. 

CBYRA has a HP system which includes bonus points for "distance" races and minimums qualifying-rules for which races get counted.

Here is the J105 Fleet 3 (Annapolis, MD) High Point Rules ..

CBYRA High Point Procedures for J105 (CBYRA = Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association)

Qualifying Rules:
1. Points are recorded based on CBYRA registration number only. The sail number and boat name are not taken into account except in determining the class that the competitor is scored in.
2. To be eligible for high point, the contestant must be a member of CBYRA and a participating club.
3. The boat must conform to the requirements of the class it races with.
4. The contestant must complete a minimum of 5 qualified races to be considered for high point.
5. A race, to be qualified for high point, must be a minimum of 4.0 miles in length. If more than one race is scored in an event then the length limit applies to the total of all races for the event.
6. A race must have an average min boat speed of 2 kts, as calculated by the rhumb-line distance of the race / elapsed time of the first finisher.  If more than one race is scored in an event then a single average speed is calculated across all races for the event.

Scoring:
1. One point is awarded for starting.
2. One point is awarded for finishing.
3. Zero points are scored for any kind of disqualification.
4. One point is scored for each yacht beaten. DSQ, DNF, OCS, NSC boats are included as yachts beaten.
5. 10 bonus points are given in any race of 25 miles or greater. No competitor can receive more than 25 bonus points in a year.
6. Multiple race events are scored on cumulative total of points for the event. Tie scores are resolved by allocating the highest position to the competitor with the best individual finish. If they tie for the best finish then it goes to the next finish, etc. Unresolved ties are given the same place and the next place assigned will be as though the tied competitors filled the number of places they would if the tie was resolved. Example: If two competitors have an unresolved tie for second the next place assigned is fourth.
7. Scores are based on a sanctioned CBYRA event basis. Regattas that include more than one CBYRA event number are scored individually for each event regardless of the overall outcome of the event.
8. One throw out is allowed for each 6 races in which a score is given.
9. The maximum score in any event is the number of competitors + 1 + bonus points. The formula for scoring each event is [(# places – place) + 2 + bonus]
10. Total score for the season is calculated by identifying throw out events and then adding total points for all remaining events and dividing by the total maximum score for these events plus 30. The result is a fraction of less than one. 

Jim, I can get you in touch with our Fleet Scorer if you are interested.  He has an excel spreadsheet that does all the heavy lifting .. you just enter in the race/competitor info

A little warning from experience when it comes to custom scoring. If this is something the competitors are asking for then all well and good, but if you are proactively seeking to improve things, well... 

Some years ago I had an idea for a new super scoring system that I thought would be a great improvement. I spent several days of spare time writing a suite of Excel spreadsheets to implement it. Then I started putting together a paper for the club on why we should adopt this. As part of it I took a bunch of past results, put them through my system and... It made damn all difference to series placings. A few places swapped about, mostly mid fleet, but looking at them I couldn't honestly say that one set of results were objectively better than the other. My new scoring system died right there. 

So by all means change if it's something the competitors want, and it will make them happier. But don't expect it to actually make much difference! I advise a quick and dirty rescoring of a couple of past events to evaluate the effects before putting too much effort in. 

Jim Champ ... to be clear, the High Point system I posted above is in the context of wanting a season champion where there are a lot of races offered and not all competitors race in the same regattas.  The system above has numeric features (like the 30 in the denominator) that benefit people who race more races ... this is to boost participation.  The bonus points are to give some weight to longer races .. also to encourage participation through the season.  

It is not meant to be a scoring system where a specific group of races are gathered for a trophy and to be eligible, a boat must compete in all the events. 

For instance, in 2025 our J105 fleet has 19 race-days in 15 events, 4 of the single-day events are "distance" races (scheduled for > 25nm). To be eligible for HP, a boat has to be scored in at least 5 of these HP-qualifying events. 

 The above doesn't include our Friday night Beer Can racing, Wed night racing (where we get 20+ on the line) and Frostbite racing ... all which are not eligible for HP due to relaxed class rules. 

- Ang

This is exactly what we are after; increasing participation. We switched to a high point system last year and as Jim found, most changes were mid fleet. That system was one someone created off the cuff (not I - I know better) and it's flaws were revealed after the first protest / DSQ. 

Thank you Ang, I'll study those rules very carefully and if they look good I'll adopt them. Sadly I only have a few more days to get the NoR out; I didn't realize our first race of the offshore series in in two weeks! Bad on me for sure... 

That would be great thank you!!

This is for CORA (Charleston Offshore Racing Association). We're also in the process of evaluating software. I'm pushing for Club Spot. I'll contact them and see if their software can accommodate this system. 

For many years in the UK, both the RORC and JOG have used a high points system (see pages 18 & 20 of the RORC Notice of Race and page 16 of the JOG Notice of Race).  You can check the details of scoring non-finisher etc in the Notices of Race, links given.  In both cases, these weight races according to the number of competitors.  The RORC does additionally award bonus points for races that count towards seasons points, which vary according to the perceived difficulty of the race and other factors; the maximum number of bonus points that can be obtained is capped (see page 8).   

On a similar topic, we were recently asked about weighting races according to difficulty using a low points system.  Our best idea was to use a multiplier that was less than 1, so boats score a smaller number than their position eg using a multiplier of 0.8, 1st place scores 0.8, 2nd scores 1.6, etc.    Does anyone know any organizing authority that does this, or has any other approach to this question?