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My PHRF Story
The story goes like this: A few years back, I rebuilt this little 27 year-old cold molded one-off (click for pictures) for my girlfriend and I to cruise and race. The thing had been holed and sunk. The people I bought it from had half rebuilt it, then let it sit in a barn for ten years. I loaded it on a Boston Whaler trailer, put the keel in the back of a buddy's truck, and went to town on it. Six and one half weeks later, viola! Our little shitter. Anyways, the real story starts when PHRF takes 100 second a mile off the boat's old rating (1772-1899 it was 215, 2000 it was 115!) The quote from the PHRF handicapper was "are you sitting down?" And it now has teak decks and a ton more s-glass and structure to help out the old wood. Yes it does have a carbon rig and big kites but 100 seconds?!! Shit, why am I not being paid millions to fix up IACC boats?!? We cut some of the sail sizes down (after we blew up the used Olson 30 kite so we built the smaller Ullman ect.) now I rate 135. A bit better, but I owe a Santa Cruz 27 something like 22 seconds a mile!??! Yea sure. In the end we do well in some races (downwind light air, but get crushed upwind in anything over 9 knots as the waterline is only 22.5 feet bla bla bla.) Big surprise! PHRF comes back after me. Ok I will sell my PHRF rule beater for someone else to win all the tin cups. I believe the guy that bought it loves it but has not finished better than fourth or fifth.
So, I started looking for a 28-30 foot new style sport boat but did not see anything even close. One of my buddies is an NA, so he carves out a drawing and some building specs for preliminary stuff and all I get is "You should buy a standard boat so that no one can bitch about the rating" from PHRF. Ok, sorry to waste my buddy's time. So, I'm off to buy a half decent boat with some others of them around so PHRF does not have hissy fits every time I piss. In comes the Laurie Davidson 34 (Dash 34). A friend bought a Dash 34 and really liked it for both racing and cruising. Turns out it is way ahead of its time, but the idiots who rigged them thought they were finishing off a Peterson 48, so every block and piece of wire is 10 times bigger and heavier than it should be. The old sails are super heavy beach balls ("those Dash's are way too tippy" - no shit) So get the boat fired up with new sails and good rigging package and clean, reasonably smooth bottom and what happens? I become an XDash 34 due to modifications?!?!? What the?? I do not debate the boat is very fast but to call me an XDash and change the rating without telling me puts me back right were I was with my old 27 footer!!! This sucks. All I want to do is go sailing with my mates in a fun boat. If they feel that the rating for the Dash's are wrong (there were something like 25 built), I am happy to discuss it but to change me to an XDASH (read custom boat) because I brought the boat up to normal standards please, give me a break.
So, as a consequence, please find a listing here at SA classified ads for my boat. Just don't tell your PHRF board it's an XDash. Jason Rhodes.
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