PHRF Fleet Splits

sailfastliveslow · May 23, 2013, 11:49:17 AM

Clubs in the Bay area need to seriously consider splitting the PHRF Spin fleet into A & B fleets. Having raced three different small boats in the Galveston Bay area, always in PHRF Spin A Fleet, the match up simply doesn't work for the little guy. By the time we've beat our way to the first weather mark, our ToD differential has evaporated. The Shoe was a good example. Leading up to the weekend of the race, registration showed 10 boats in PHRF Spin, 5 under 30' and 5 over 30'. Lumped together, one of the smaller boats dropped out before the event. The rest of us could only watch the big guys horizon us. While the PHRF numbers are fair and square, the delta is simply too large to compete, usually. Since most fleets need only three to form a class, no reason not to have a PHRF A & B. We might see more of the smaller PHRF orphans return to the race course if they believed they could be competitive. PROs could simply score PHRF A & B separately, and keep them on the same start/finish sequence.

Sincerely,

PHRF Hack

racinbill · May 23, 2013, 11:58:57 AM

Thanks for starting this thread, I agree wholeheartedly. U20 and J122 in the same class?

? Who is going to have dirty air throughout the race? No chance for the little boats.

racinbill · May 23, 2013, 12:01:22 PM

Although Mojo figured it out.....great sailing guys and girl.

Billy

Bee · May 23, 2013, 12:09:48 PM

Your telling me that on an off the wind course a U20, or M24, or J70 that planes at 12 knots doesn't have a chance against the J122?

Tell you what, if you believe that, I have this wonderful house in Phoenix which has a beautiful view of the Sierra Madres and the Pacific. Please contact me immediately these quarters go really quickly .....

Hee Hee.

Bee · May 23, 2013, 09:51:45 PM

OOPS. Was thinking Rum Races. Even at that a well sails little boat like an M24, J70, or Viper should not have much trouble against the big guys. When it comes to W/L the down wind leg usually belongs to the fireflies while the upwind leg belongs to the big boys. If your sailing a 27 symmetric against a J122 a-Kite then I agree its kinda unfair.

sailfastliveslow · May 23, 2013, 10:07:41 PM

Someone at LYC gotta the actual Shoe results with minutes shown? Bet is way more than you think.

hayesrigging · May 23, 2013, 10:42:29 PM

It's actually pretty close in a lot of races. I really enjoyed it. If you click on the race number you can see the detail.

As far as dirty air your better off in a class with a big phrf margin that 10-15 sec!! The 122 is almost 2 kts faster than the 24 upwind so your not in dirty air long!!!

The interesting thing is 2 of the top 3 in the phrf fleet were small boats.

hayesrigging · May 23, 2013, 10:49:27 PM

Small boats were 2 of top 4. My bad. But very close racing in almost every race. I think its actually quite impressive on how close it was.

sailfastliveslow · May 23, 2013, 11:02:51 PM

Didn't seem that close as we limped back to port with a broken rudder gudgeon in the 2nd race Sunday. Exilerating, but exhausting trying to keep 1200# of boat upright in those breezes while slamming into chop. The M24s are more resilient than the U20 and other PHRF B boats and I still think a numeric fleet split for scoring purposes might attract more boats under 30' back into the pack.

sailfastliveslow · June 11, 2013, 03:50:47 PM

Hey. It's me, your whiny

PHRF slacker again. Check out the Leukemia Kup PHRF registrations so far

1.    Ken Womack
Texas Corinthian Yacht Club    35037    Revolution    PHRF Spinnaker /    Carroll Marine / 1D35    36
2.    Dmitriy Yegorov
HYC    23540    Aravaca    PHRF Spinnaker /    / J-24    172

Still don't think we need a separate A & B fleets? These boats are 2 minutes, 16 seconds per mile apart

. That's 10 minutes in a typical 4 leg 1.2nm course. Perhaps we would be seeing more registration action if the fleet were split into A & B. It could be accomplished mathematically without necessitating separate start/finishes.

Christopher · June 11, 2013, 05:37:20 PM

Quote from: sailfastliveslow on June 11, 2013, 03:50:47 PM
Hey. It's me, your whiny PHRF slacker again. Check out the Leukemia Kup PHRF registrations so far

1.    Ken Womack
Texas Corinthian Yacht Club    35037    Revolution    PHRF Spinnaker /    Carroll Marine / 1D35    36
2.    Dmitriy Yegorov
HYC    23540    Aravaca    PHRF Spinnaker /    / J-24    172

Still don't think we need a separate A & B fleets? These boats are 2 minutes, 16 seconds per mile apart . That's 10 minutes in a typical 4 leg 1.2nm course. Perhaps we would be seeing more registration action if the fleet were split into A & B. It could be accomplished mathematically without necessitating separate start/finishes.

You first have to satisfy the "minimum of three yachts of the same design will constitute a fleet" requirement of the NOR. So far these are the only two registered in PHRF spin. Will need six or more registered before you can start splitting and maintain the 'minimum of three yachts' per class. Even then you may not get reasonable bands to split.

We used to split PHRF along PHRF bands or size or sprit/nonsprit back when we used to have enough boats to split into ample size classes. Every year, there are fewer and fewer PHRF boats as more people are going to one-design.

BJSailor · June 11, 2013, 08:31:49 PM

Nothing personal Ken, Chuck, Fred... But with the handicap that Revolution has, an even moderately capable J/24 should correct out ahead. That OD35 is very tough to sail to its numbers.

One thing that catches my attention is the desire for many sailors to accept winning a pickle dish (even for second place) in a three boat fleet. Doesn't it matter more if you win a third place award in a 12 boat fleet? Doesn't it bother folks to see 3 boat fleets for PHRF A Spin, PHRF B Spin, PHRF Sprit, PHRF "dirty-bottoms", etc... I fully understand the frequent handicap number disparity, but isn't it more interesting / exciting / meaningful if there are 12 boats in your start / fleet? I look at the chatter from the rum / icicle races and I see bunches of spin boats (non-spin and Club Handicap too) enthusiastic about racing against / with a ton of boats - there is competition there!!!

sailfastliveslow · June 12, 2013, 02:16:32 PM

It does matter and it depends. If you're the one winning the hardware in the fleet, OK. If not, it's a problem

. You have no idea how scary it is to line up your #1100 20 footer against a 1D-35 charging the line at 8 knots. Like all PHRF whiners, I'd like a gold star just for showing up.

Bee · June 12, 2013, 04:08:20 PM

When I raced in PHRF (1997-2003) splitting the PHRF fleet was the norm. At that time it was not unusual for 10+ PHRF spin boats to sign up and race. I even saw splits into A, B, and C.

Looking at the current list one sees that there are actually 8 spin boats entered. Six are in the Pursuit division and 2 in the W/L division. I cannot see how to spilt a 2 boat division, but with 6, the Pursuit boats have enough if the participants are OK with it. I have never seen it happen.

The PHRF numbers in the Pursuit bunch range from 33 to 213 with only 2 (33 and 78) close enough together to warrant a split. If you put the Pursuit and W/L together you could conceivably split them into A with 3 and B with 5. If you put all the spin boats (including the J105, J80, J109, ... ) together you would have a big enough bunch to make a nice split but these guys bought their boats because they did not want to run PHRF so whenever a three boat fleet forms they will never be willing to go PHRF.

What's really happened here is the evolution of sailing technology. Boats like an M24 (Mojo for example), J70's, Vipers, and the rest of the bigger sprit boats have more or less revolutionize sailing by making everything easier and more fun to do. Even worse, those that plane are very difficult if not impossible to handicap accurately. As more and more of the local sailors switched to these boats the big PHRF fleets began to decrease in size. Its this decrease that has create the strange PHRF mixes we sail under today. If you can get the entries back up to past levels, local clubs will have little problem doing the split.

hayesrigging · June 12, 2013, 09:32:59 PM

I would like to see the clubs up the minimum for a one design class to at least 4 maybe even 5. Three boats is not enough to have fun racing in a seperate class in my opinion. Maybe have a sub class for the three one designs within the class. It would help the RCs be able to have competitive classes. We had three Melges 24s for the shoe and I did not want to be separated out. I would rather race against 7-8 PHRF boats then by ourselves with 3.

Definitely the move towards one design is hurting the PHRF fleets. Maybe we should have one or two regattas a year that are PHRF only with no one design?

That would be interesting.