PHRF Help please

[Allan Fisher]

Hi,
I am a PHRF officer for our club in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, Canada. Our 3 S2 7.9's currently rate at 168.
The issue of the retractable keel has come up in our fleet and I would like some information from your members, in the interest of fair racing.
1. With the keel up on a downwind leg, is the S2 still self righting?
2. In the US Sail PHRF Ratings book, it is noted that "many fleets require that it be raced with drop keels be locked down". When you race PHRF, is this a requirement in your club?
3. What would be the difference in the rating of an S2 that sailed with its keel up vs one with its keel down? (Since the PHRF Manual does not say which clubs require keels to be locked down, I am unable to determine if there is a differance in ratings between them.)

I am certain that this conversation has been held many times with S2 7.9 owners and I would just like to know what you have determined is is best for fair sailing.
Thanks for any info or advise you can give me.

[dave]

Allan, we use the GYA-PHRF ratings and rules and going by those guidelines here are the answers:
1 Yes
2 No [see the attached rules].
3 The boat was originally designed TO BE sailed down wind with the board somewhere besides all the way down. That's why it's self righting even with the board all the way up and also why clubs/areas that still insist on beating this dead horse and having separate ratings for the two methods are behind the curve, no offense intended of course!

http://java46.homestead.com/GYA_PHRF_By ... __2008.pdf

[dave]

To save you some reading time I should have included the location of the applicable paragraph.

V. A.

[LarryE-old]

We had a big stink in our PHRF area, last year. Not involving the 7.9, but other boats.
What I learned was that PHRF CANNOT override class rules. If you sail your boat as an ODR boat, you go by class rules which allows the board raised.

[Tom Elsen]

Hi Allan, welcome

I appreciate that you've asked the sailors here for their opinions. Please pardon the 'Oh dear god here we go again' quotient. We've all been through this a bunch.

To answer your questions directly:
1) Yes absolutely. Actually a 7.9 with the board up has a better righting-moment than a J24.
2) No. The vast vast majority have no such requirement.
3) You can't 'lock it down'. A fair adjustment would be 5 - 6 sec / mi IMHO.

Here's where the problems have arisen in the past:
A few (three) local PHRF boards declared that all board / swing keel boats would henceforth be required to sail board down at all times. They ignored the PHRF handbook and refused to re-rate the boats. (This new requirement to sail board-down was a de-facto re-specification of the boats' equipment and therefore grounds for a re-rating.)

In each case the action was prompted by the sailor of another type boat who was unable to legitimately challenge the 7.9s rating.

In each case the sham 'safety issue' was advanced, and in one case accepted without review of the pertinent data. That same board also refused to indicate why they would not re-rate the boat. In a different case no one on the board would comment at all, although it was suspicious that the person bringing the case was also on the board. The third case involved a supposed long-standing requirement regarding swing keel boats, that was extended to daggerboard boats.

There have been at least three cases where the proposed board-down requirement was rejected.

I guess the bottom line is this - If someone wants to challenge the rating, that's fair. Go ahead. Prepare the data. Satisfy the PHRF requirements, present the case. The board can decide that case on its merits. Re-specifying the equipment on any boat, in any way, is a different matter. When that is done the board must account for that re-specification in the rating. (Or it must say that the boat was never sailed in such a configuration. That is obviously false here.)

If, for example, all J24s were suddenly limited to a maximum headsail of 130% of J, or Merit 25s required to carry an extra 200 lbs of ballast, re-ratings for those boats would certainly be in order. It would only be fair. The same is true when one changes the equipment specs for a 7.9.

In looking at the national data 168 seems in order and fair for your water.

I hope this helps. Thanks again for asking here.

[dave]

Ah, the beauty of arbitrarily derived ratings.........................................

Alas, PHRF is FAR from perfect but it is what it is. It IS unfortunate that there ARE people out there who let personal feelings and/or their own agenda stand in the way of fairness. We have a couple of J80's at our club and under the GYA-PHRF system that we use they are rated 126 with a motor, 123 without. The average for the same boat that I derived from the clubs that GYA lists as those who's ratings are used in appeals/diputes is in the 114 range, and the head honcho can't give me a good, real world reason for the discrepancy. Go figure!

We are rated 171, the same as the J24.

[Tom Elsen]

Dave brings up a good point, one that's often lost in all of the noise.

It really isn't the number, so much as how that number relates to others in the pack. You'll see that the 7.9s are almost always within a point or two of the J24s. That's what it should be. So, if somebody puts 7.9s at the low end of the range, say 168, all else equal, the 24s should be there as well. (I'm not picking on the 24 fleet, it's just that there is a lot of data on both boats.)

There would be no reason to have the 24s and 7.9s at a normal 171 and J80s at a zany +10% of their 'normal' number. The equivalent handicap for a 7.9 would be 187. I've never seen that number, even in light air / flat water venues.

However keep in mind that that point-or-so-difference with the 24s assumes the 7.9 sails in normal configuration (able to raise the board). Change the equipment specs and the rating must change as well.

[@last]

LMPHRF's number is 165 and there were 13 7.9's rated there for 2007. They (LMPHRF) are very explict about the board requirement to be in down position at all times. Could this be appealed....perhaps....but I think as has been mentioned rather than the absolute number, the number relative to other competing boats is really what is important as long as you are talking about all boats racing in the same area/geographic PHRF region.

@last #56

[dave]

Apples to apples! Agreeing with Tom [a regular love fest !], all of the "known quantity" boats that are sailing in a region should have pretty similar ranges between them as in other regions. If not [like the J80 under GYA] something might be rotten in Denmark! What is the LMPHRF # for a J24?

Until our club went to GYA rules and ratings [to get rid of the local politics] we were 167 and the J24 was 169. That's 10 seconds and hour that we had to give them. Now we are both at 171 and the other boats in both fleets are higher also but there are a few "cupcakes" under the new system.

[Tom Elsen]

Someone in LMPHRF will need to write the appeal. I cannot.
I can provide some help, including the following: LMPHRF re-specified the applicable equipment on the S2 7.9, with negative impact on the performance characteristics of the boat. Subsequently they refused to re-rate the boat with the new equipment specifications.
One of the issues considered during the gear re-specification was the 'safety issue'. Although the new rule applied to all daggerboard boats, the 'safety-issue' was specific to the 7.9. Unfortunately neither the class nor any of its officers were contacted to provide pertinent righting moment and other data prior to the hearing. Most unfortunately, LMPHRF refused to note that the prior (approximately 20 year) history of observations and ratings for the 7.9 had all been in one-design configuration. Some readers have gotten the false impression that the 165 / board down rating had been there all along.

[dave]

VERY unfortunately, some PHRF handicapping boards turn into banana republics. Common sense and/or any semblance of fairness or impartiality is replaced by bluster, ego and retribution aimed at those who "dared" question their collective wisdom and years of service!

[Allan Fisher]

What I learned was that PHRF CANNOT override class rules. If you sail your boat as an ODR boat, you go by class rules which allows the board raised.

Larry, this is the first time I have heard this. Can you give me a referance?

[Allan Fisher]

Thank you all for replying.
I am one of 3 PHRF "Board" members, and our approach has been to ensure we have fair racing and that we stay out of the way of sailors enjoying thier sport. Staying out of 'harms" way is pretty much impossible if you are serving on a PHRF Committee!!
This question arose because at the end of our 2007 season, there had been a few "mumbles" about the 7.9 keel & we wanted to be proactive about it. We had a similar occurance with 3 Santana 23's a couple years back. A visit to their forum got us all the information we needed to make a decision, and everyone was fine with it (raised...class rules) after that.

I think I can satisfy everyone if LarryE can supply me with some documentation that "PHRF cannot supercede Class Rules".

While I am here, I do have another question.
We have one 7.9 that flys a masthead kite. The kite is oversized, which we can deal with, but should there be further consideration because it is flown from the masthead rather than the lower point? Do your class rules allow this? Is this even a wise thing to do?

Further to the PHRF debate (never ending), we don't have a lot of sailmakers & boatbuilders & salesmen to influence decisions. Since we don't have that "expertise", we average the US Sailng #'s after throwing out the high & low numbers. ( Several years ago PHRF-NW & BC Sailing increased all thier numbers by 10%, so tthey are usually the first ones to go.) If there is debate about the outcome, we look at similar clubs in similar conditions to acheive a final number. Clubs that report 0 (zero) boats racing are not considered.
At our club, the 7.9's race level with the J-24's at 168. Our singular J-80 races at 117. (looking at the #'s in the manual, I would be hard pressed to give it 123!)
Again, Thank You for your input.
Allan

[LarryE-old]

What I learned was that PHRF CANNOT override class rules. If you sail your boat as an ODR boat, you go by class rules which allows the board raised.

Larry, this is the first time I have heard this. Can you give me a referance?

Allen,
The big issue we had was weight limits. That was when I was told our weight limit, since we are ODR, would be the class weight. We have a sailer whinning about the board. The handicapper told him that there was nothing he could do, as being ODR we sail to class rules, and thats how we are rated.

[Tom Elsen]

Hi Allan

First of all, thank you for supporting sailing. Whatever issues any of us has with PHRF, the fact remains that the sport needs volunteers like you. So thanks.

RE the masthead kite. This is not one-design spec. There were several boats built to accommodate a MH, but the 7/8 fractional kite is the only one allowed in OD. I think you are right to consider the whole issue of both greater overall size and greater height in your ratings. My suggestion is to swap crews on the MH and the frac boats. Then have them sail a couple of downwind legs fairly close together. No jibes, no covering. Use your GPS to obtain distances sailed and record the difference in the times. There's your penalty for the MH.

Your normal rating methods seem very reasonable to me.

I'm not a PHRF scholar, but my understanding is quite different from Larry's. My belief, and experience, is that "all PHRF is local PHRF". That is the problem. The national PHRF 'administration' is far from a strong force in guiding local decisions. In the past, the appeals process has grossly encumbered individuals, etc etc etc. If it was other than this, LMPHRF for example, would never have been able to disregard PHRFs own requirements of re-rating a boat whenever significant changes are made to the sailing equipment (the deck, weight, rig, foils etc.).

RE Larry's comment, it could be that his local PHRF board has chosen to abide by all boats' class ODR rules. That is a smart decision IMHO. But it is local not a national decision AFAIK.