GBCA Cruising Class

[Kevin Box]

GBCA is not really a cruising club.  It?s pretty much always been about racing.  The club was formed in 1947 by a fleet of six Stout Fellas plus an assortment of four or five other cruising yachts, and was known as the Stout Fella Organization of Galveston Bay.  I guess that?s the way people talked back in the 40?s.  The next year, the SFOGB, as it were, became the Galveston Bay Cruising Association.  ?Cruising?, because it was a bunch of guys that wanted to race cruising boats.  Back then, the only organized racing in these parts was basically in one-design dinghys.  

As we now know, for a variety of cruising boats to compete on the race course, you need a handicap rule.  There have been many over the years.  The CCA rule was one that was popular back then.  CCA stood for Cruising Club of America, so you can now imagine someone coming up with the name Galveston Bay Cruising Association for our club.  Over the years, various handicapping schemes have come in and out of favor.  Most folks will bitch about whichever system is in place, unless, of course, they are winning under it.  And yet, I find myself trying to create a new one.  

I guess I should talk for a minute about various handicapping and measurement rules:

First, there is what?s known as One-Design.  In one-design racing, the boats are exactly the same, at least theoretically.  Stars, Ensigns, Etchells, Flying Scots, what have you.  It?s considered the purest form of yacht racing since, again, theoretically, boat handling, tactics and strategy rule the day.  But, since none of these boats can cruise the Caribbean, take the family on a weekender or even a comfortable day-sail for that matter, we?ll not dwell on them.

Then there are measurement rules, the most famous of these being the 12-Meter rule of the old America?s Cup boats.   If you?ve seen any of these 12-Meter Boats, you?ll note that they are WAY more than 12 meters long.  12 meters is actually the answer to a formula that takes waterline, sail area, displacement, mid-girth and blah, blah, blah and the answer to that: life, the universe and everything is 12.  

The modern term for these type rules is a ?Development Rule?, since it allows designers to come up with all sorts of innovations, providing the end result fits into this particular box.  Over time the boats asymptotically approach the most perfectly efficient, in-bred sailing machine that fits in the box.  

Similar rules come and go:

ORC
Midget or MORC
IOR
IMS
Americap ? Sounds patriotic
IRC ? in popular use now

New rules are good.  Folks get tired of the old rules, especially if they weren?t winning under them.  New and innovative, Handicap or Measurement or Box rules, keep boat builders busy.  Everybody wants new boats, especially people like me, who like to buy the latest in yacht building technology, after about ten years of depreciation, of course.  

These various systems apply to maybe ten to twenty percent of the yacht racing world, at best.  The rest, at least in this country, are racing under PHRF, the Performance Handicap Racing Fleet.  The goal of PHRF is to rate the boat, based on local observed performance.  This is why the same boat that rates 150 here, may rate 140 (10 seconds per mile faster) in San Francisco.  

PHRF is the best, most affordable system we have at the local weekend warrior level.  It?s a cheap, easily administrated system that, for 25 bucks a year gives a lot of value.  Since it?s administrated locally, ratings can be appealed based on local performance.  PHRF does, however, assume some things that are rather distasteful to the cruising sailor who would like to occasionally race his boat.

One thing it assumes is no extra weight: No anchor on the bow.  No BBQ.  No Bimini.  No Dinghy Davits.  No tools, extra clothes, spare parts, fuel, water, water guns, guns of any nature,  Mardi Gras beads, grass skirts or coconut bras.  No Calphalon cookware, TV, DVD player, surround sound, full liquor locker or case of 2003 Caymus Cabernet? Nada.   No credit for any of this.  No fun.  

It also assumes a perfectly clean and fair bottom, keel and rudder as well as optimum sails for the conditions.  These are not 5-10-year old Dacron sails.  It gives a small credit for a fixed 2 or 3 bladed prop that does not pay.

Another thing that PHRF assumes is perfect crew work, tactics and strategy.  Sorry Grandma.  Would you mind watching the dog for awhile?  You kids be good and mind Mommy until Daddy and his crew get back to the dock.  He?ll order pizza later if he?s not too tired, sunburned or drunk.  This is wrong.  The whole family should all be able to get tired, sunburned and drunk together, local regulations permitting.

Again, PHRF is a great system which runs on the effort of experienced volunteers who have a passion for yacht racing and seek to make things fair for all.  It?s just that under that system, there?s no way to give racer/cruisers who are more on the cruising end of the spectrum, credit for all those things I just mentioned.

I?ve wondered why the majority of boats on the dock don?t race and though I think I?ve begun to answer my own question, I still ask other sailors that won?t consider it, WHY?  Racing is a wonderful experience and the very best way to learn to sail in the most seamanlike manner possible.  Being able to sail your boat at optimum efficiency on any given point of sail and to execute timely strategic maneuvers is not the province of elite yacht racing snobbery.  It is, in fact, just good seamanship.  Just like dragging four fenders of various sizes all over Galveston Bay, is not good seamanship.  

In reality, I?ve found that most every sailor has a little bit of racer in them, whether they care to admit it or not.  A typical example is the morning I was getting ready to head out for a day of race committee work on a local regatta.  One of the old hands around the marina says ?what are you up to today??  ?Oh, I?m going out to help run a sailboat race.?  ?Yeah, well all that racing crap?s just not for me.?  ?Yeah, I know.?  ?Say, what kind of boat do you have anyway??  ?It?s an Islander 36 and a damn good one.  It?s a hell of a boat boy.  I wouldn?t trade it for nothin?.  I?d sail that boat anywhere?  Well, I guess everybody likes their boat.  ?So, if you were out sailing and an identical Islander 36  came up from behind and just rolled right over the top of you like you were anchored, how would that set with you??  ?Oh, Bullshit on that!  I?d tighten that jib and pull that main up?He ain?t passing me like that.?  Ah ha!  A latent racer!  A one-design champion at that, with the fastest Islander 36 on the planet!  But, I digress.

Even among ?serious? racers, the thing I?ve noticed about everyone is that you can?t be DFL in every race for long without questioning the whole program.  That goes for the $500K race boat full of Kevlar and Carbon, right down to the Center cockpit Crab Crusher 32.  You?ve got to get a little taste of silver every now and then, or at least be in the hunt.  This sort of thing is what got me thinking about a more cruiser friendly handicap racing system.  So, I have come up with the ?GBCA Club Handicap.?

The GBCA Club Handicap is based on 100% observed performance as measured by finish times.  No matter what the configuration or payload of your boat is, as long as it remains consistent, it will eventually achieve a sort of parity with the other boats in the class.  In fact, a key component is keeping your boat consistent.  No fair racing for three in a row and then taking off the 45lb CQR and 200 feet of chain and draining your fuel and water tanks.  You just sail like you normally would.

The way it works is like this.  Each boat will start out with a handicap.  If you have a PHRF certificate, we?ll use that.  If not, we?ll assign a rating.  Don?t like that rating, don?t worry.  Most boats don?t like their rating.  In fact, while there are guys lined-up to protest their rating because it?s too fast, I don?t believe a boat ever came to the PHRF Committee and said ?You know, I guess my boat is rated a little slow.  Y?all should just go ahead and subtract a few seconds from me.?  I wonder why that is?

After each race, each boats handicap will be adjusted based on its performance relative to the median boat in the fleet.  I?m not going to bore you here with complex formulas, even though it?s not all that complex.  The gist of the system is: that if you lost to the middle boat, your handicap will be raised by a portion of the time in seconds/mile that you lost.  The ?portion? is a formula that takes into account the speed of the race.  On a race in 15-20 knots, the delta between boats is more significant than a five-knot-fiesta, where you might sail off into a hole for 20 minutes.  In practice, the factor should range from 15-25%.  This means that if you lost by 30 seconds per mile to the middle boat on a good seabreeze day, your handicap for the next race will be 6-7 seconds higher.  And conversely for the speed demon who beat the middle guy by 30 seconds per mile.  He gets his rating lowered 6-7 seconds.

We?re going to roll out the system as an experiment for the Icicle Series.  That will be the first 5 Saturdays of the New Year.  If all goes well with good participation, we?ll continue to use it for all regattas and series.  The Icicle Series will be free and open to the public.  After that, you?ll have to be a GBCA senior member.  

If you are interested in signing-up, send me a message through this site with details of your boat and/or its rating.  And tell your cruising dock friends about it too.

[Chris P]

Sounds great. We're in.
`99 C&C 110 Dacron sails, assym spinn flown off the bow stem with ATN. Shoal draft. Current PHRF 90 (I think). Boat sails with bride and 4 young kids as crew. Dinghy, outboard, kayak, HVAC, etc.

[Bee]

Wow.  What a concpt.  If this doesn't get them out, nothing will.

[Stellar of Course]

Kevin:

When I first heard you mention this new system, TMCA meeting, I was onboard. Count on us entering in the Cruisng class for the icicle series.

Stellar of Course
CaL 33-2
PHRF rating 171.

I hope we have a warm January so we can more boats out.

Ron Eddleman

[marc]

You'll have to have a Race Committee on station to take finishes and times at the Icicle Series. The St Barth's and Newport Bucket regattas do a similar thing, adjusting handicaps after each day.

Personally, I don't think the current system is broken, so don't understand the need to fix it. So, as I read it different boats in One Design configuration could have different ratings.

Marc

[JayZ]

kind of sounds a bit like golf handicapping.  should be different and fun.

[JayZ]

forgot to add,  I hope it gets some new boats out on the water and truly grows the cruising class.

[Kevin Box]

The GBCA Club Handicap Class is not designed to replace or ?fix? anything in the current state of yacht racing.  We do not expect one-design or even most PHRF boats to compete under it.  It was created as a way to get new people/boats into the sport.   The original post was mostly an excerpt from a talk I gave at the TMCA monthly meeting.  It was fairly well received, so I was encouraged about this particular avenue for growing our sport.

It?s not a new invention.  It is a marriage of PHRF ?golf handicapping? and a system used at the Santa Barbara Yacht Club which has been very successful.  Some might like it.  Others might not.  Some may get the fever so bad that they start doing things like changing to a folding prop, getting bottom jobs, hiring divers and consulting sailmakers.  Some may become so infected that they go out and get a one-design race boat.

It?s an experiment.  We don?t really know what will happen.  We just know that we have to try.  Something to chew on for the next week besides turkey.  More details to come.

[Chris P]

I think anything to get folks out there and sailing/racing, with their families, is a step in the right direction!

[B Sailing/Alan Bates]

I personally seem to sail slower than most people--can I get a handicap?
~~Alan

[Bee]

Well, Alan,  you may sail slower, but you do train great mainsail trimmers.

[jhjoiner]

//  This will open the door for so many that want to crew but have little sailing experience-I have heard many complaints about decline in racing numbers so this could start a new era! 

[jsailor]

Yeah -- the cruising class can be a lot of fun.

At the Turkey Day Regatta on Saturday the crew on one boat got to thinking about how good some fresh crabs would be after the race.

They stopped along the way to pick up a crab trap full of fresh crabs.

They kept them underwater all the way around the race course just so they would be fresh when they returned to the dock.

What a feast... 5 large crabs.



Seriously though, it would be good to see a lot of cruising boats out on the race course. It is a great way to learn to sail amd have a great time too!

[gwittich]

Kevin, I would like to sign up for this experiment:

Figaro
Contessa/OOD 34 SM
PHRF (non-spin): 153

Thanks,
Gerhard Wittich

[tsampsel]

Count me in!

Reflection
Catalina 320
Dacron everything
Wing keel
PHRF - 185

How about you other 320's??  You know you're out there.