Whine and Ye Shall Receive

By now our rants about PHRF are well-known. And well founded. And that's because what we hate the most about this system of "performance" handicapping is the near total subjectivity of who deserves a rating adjustment, and who does not. I know the handicappers try, but so what? Trying that results in failure is still failure, isn't it?

Here's a terrific case in point: For about the last three years or so, a Farr 40 (not OD) "High Five" and a Farr 44 "Bravura", have dominated the San Diego PHRF scene. Between the two of them, they won virtually every buoy series (unlike offshore races, buoy races are the only real proof of true "performance") locally, and managed to win their share out of town as well. Sure, the occasional 50' would win now and again, but without question, it was these two that took turns winning everything.

It was as clear as day to anyone who could recognize such things that both of these boats sailed faster than their ratings, which were 18 and 33, respectively. The 44 rating in particular seemed very gifty, given that the boat would win without appearing to be sailed all that well. I know, I was sailing a CM 1200 for awhile against these two. At a rating of 21, we owed the 44 12 seconds per mile which proved to be a total joke. When we were in front we could virtually never manage to save our time, and more often than not, they just simply beat us boat for boat. And getting 3 seconds per mile from the 40 was ridiculous as well. In anything under say 6 knots of breeze we could sometimes hang on, anything over that, forget it. They would literally sail away.

Now, I'll grant that the landscape changed somewhat with the recent arrival of Big Bad DC's R/P 50 (ex-Morning Glory) and an OD 48, but there is little doubt that these two have ratings that are not right either (ask anyone who sails against them). I'll go into that later if any of you wish.

Since the local board is sloth-like in it's thinking and movement, nothing was done about these two Farr boats for years as they continued to rack up win after win. The board, frozen with fear and stupidity, after some badgering from the likes of me, harkened upon a brilliant buck-passing notion: Let the owners of the Class A boats get together and decide what they should all rate! Talk about letting the fox guard the hen house. Here's the best part, the owner of the 44 was to head up this particular mission! Jesus H. Christ, I about choked to death when I saw what was coming. And what came was nothing short of ridiculous. Care to guess that the 44 and 40 ratings stayed the same? Congratulations, you just won a prize.

The Big Solution was not to hit the two offending boats, but rather give time to a few of the slower boats! So for the most part, boats that had not a snowball's chance in hell of ever beating these two, no matter how much time they were given, received some little rating bone, and we were all supposed to go away happy. Oh yeah, in the process, they gave time to OD 35's and J-125's, boats that were clearly rocket ships, but hadn't hit their stride yet. More good thinking.

It was at this point that I resigned my membership to this PHRF fleet run by dullards (apologies to those of you on the board who I actually like) and wondered why in the hell I had gotten involved at all. The result is almost always so completely unsatisfactory, and this was my final confirmation of that fact. BTW, do you think one of these board members, upon recognizing that a guy who had been an industry professional for 10 years, a guy who had more experience on a variety of Class A boats than anyone in San Diego and had just resigned in disgust, bothered to call to talk about any of the issues? Of course not. It's what you get when you combine power and ignorance - it's called bad decision making.

Fast forward to this year. The Board, through a miraculous awakening (much like, I suspect, when Mormon Elders claim to have some divine revelation) they decided (albeit three years too late) to hit the 40 and 44 six seconds each. Well, okay, I guess. Why in the hell it took so long was anybody's guess, but the descriptive references to the board found above are most likely an accurate reasoning as to the why.

So it turns out that the two Farr boats go to a couple of regattas and they don't win. Oh my god - they didn't win! Can you imagine! The injustice! They didn't win! Isn't it their ordained right to win? Certainly the slack-jawed yokels on the board had given them gift ratings to win with. Now this board, which had previously bent over for these two like a drunken patron at The Brass Rail, was wrong.

You'll be pleased to know that after much complaining from these two (with a letter from the owner of the 40, himself an all-time whiner) that the board again assumed the position and gave them their original gift ratings back. I guess the board's miraculous awakening turned out to be as fake as the Mormon's.

We can only speculate on what is next. Clearly DC's new rig is fast and unbeaten. Rumor has it that he is selling it before he gets a rating hit, although somehow we can't imagine this board of starry-eyed sycophants crossing the Big Man in any way, shape, or form. Rumor further has it that the person buying the R/P 50 is none other than the owner of the 44! Let's see, rather than hit the 50, he'll convene a group to give time to all the slower boats…………………..