"Capt. Rob" wrote in message
ups.com...
Since I've actually been in PHRF races and most of you only read about
them, here's a little test for you. The Wednesday night race consists
of the following boats:

Spirit 23
Coronado 27
Siedlemann 30
Catalina 30
J24
Nordic 30
Express 30
Kirie Elite 32
Beneteau 35s5
Beneteau 36.7
Farr 38
C&C 34R
C&C 115

Quite a range of boats and ratings....NOW...what is the biggest
inherent flaw in this race...and most races with a range of boats like
this? Spare me the answers with NO answers. If you can't understand the
basic flaw don't pretend that you can.
Well?


Robert B
35s5...a boat that would have a tougher time winning PHRF, or one design,
or the special olympics
NY

Ah, Bob, don't know how to break the news to you, but the reason these guys
with the "slow" older boats do so well on Wednesday night is that they've
owned their boats for years, and they can sail them to their rating, more
often than not, they can sail them faster than their rating. They know their
boats, something that generally takes a little longer than a couple of hours
to achieve You forget, or more likely, never knew, that PHRF is merely a
RATING system for the YACHT. I told you to read that last paragraph twice,
maybe I should have told you to read it over and over again until you
actually understood what they were trying to say. PHRF does not now, nor has
it ever, advocated any particular method of scoring a race. If you looked
far and wide you could find a group of sailors that handicap lack of skill,
the overwhelming majority do not, however. Best stick to trying to outsail
those "slower" boats.

John Cairns