Viper 640 PHRF

Started by Jason Hyerstay, April 19, 2011, 07:55:18 PM

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Bob Matthews

Mid-Atlantic PHRF has 2 Vipers registered at 102; Melges at 96. 

Olaf Bleck

Quote from: Thomas Leith on September 06, 2011, 11:17:16 PM

The politics thing is overblown. ...

...

As for PHRF committees "not liking" sport boats -- what they want, just like the rest of us, is more boats they can race with. It is simply wrong to make a PHRF Division with boats of wildly differing designs, and it is BEST for a PHRF Division to have at most a 60 second delta between the slowest and fastest boat in the division. In regattas and our buoy series, we put the sportboats in their own division -- they don't race the leadmines.  The leadmine guys would rather we all bought leadmines and raced with them, of course.

...



Hah!  Tell that the PHRF New England people...! LOL 

They won't rate the Viper officially, and ban it from sanctioned PHRF New England regattas.  This despite the fact that it actually meets all the PHRF NE rules, which are simply that it needs a motor which can drive the boat in flat water at the square root of the LOA in knots.  They violate their own charter which says in the intro,

"It is the intent of PHRF-NE handicapping that any well-equipped, well-maintained, and well-sailed boat has a good chance to win; and that any boat that wins a PHRF-NE race is indeed well- equipped, well-maintained, and well-sailed."

and

"8.1.1 Only single hulled cruiser/racer boats will be issued official handicap certificates.. "


FWIW, I'm all for a sportboat class if need be.
East Coast: Viper #56;  West Coast: Viper #24 (available for charter)

David Furna

I just got mine raised from 90p to 96p. The local committee used a rating of 84 from Charleston, given to that modified Viper of the past. They didn't used David Olivers rating from Columbia since he's on a lake. Most of these guys think sportboats go 12-16kts from start to finish, upwind, downwind and sideways. It sucks, but I agree with Olaf, at least we get to race. I can't race PHRF in the lower Cheasapeake...not allowed for the Black Seal Cup.

Dave

Craig Wilusz

Craig and Deborah
#100 Myasasaur

David Furna

That looks interesting. Most of the racing around here got cancelled due to Irene damage. How many boats do you expect? Any other Asym's? I'll have to check the calender.

Dave

Craig Wilusz

Assortment of PHRF, good sailors, Great club!  Three days of w/l's.  The Flying Tigers show up for their own class.  We should have Tripp 26's, Evelyn 32's, A Viper, maybe a Melges 20, Eliott 770 (maybe 2 of them) etc etc.  Will keep you filled in.  We do okay working the boat hard as we can against the sym rigged boats, just can't hike out off straps, but no motor required either.

Craig
Craig and Deborah
#100 Myasasaur

David Furna

Get me some more info, I'll see what I can do. I've been racing a Thompson 26 up here. I can beat him in a breeze, but he's tough in light air. Also racing a well sailed Etchell's too, damn thing just goes straight downwind...while I sail all kinds of angles trying to beat him...Would be fun to come down there for a few days.

Jay Harrell

Three days of sailing on Pensacola Bay in October?  Better send me some info on that too.

David Furna

#38
Calender looking good for that weekend. email me when you get a chance. Actually, let me know what your fall/winter series looks like....maybe I'll just leave my boat down there and do several races with ya.

[email protected]

Justin Scott

Gentleman, Ladies and Viper owners,

If you can articulate a clearly defined wish list for our class with regard to PHRF, I will carry it to the US Sailing PHRF Committee.

This consists of 14 members and two advisors. The secretary of the PHRF committee, Jim Walsh, is also the current Chairperson of US Sailings House of Delegates which is USS's 48 person congress. He is a good guy and we can certainly work with him to create a better enviroment for sport boats.

FWIW, you can point out to your local PHRF measurer that the median handicap for the Viper in one design format as stated in the US Sailing PHRF handbook is 102. They need to articulate why local conditions strongly favor the Viper if you are less than that.

FWIW, I agree with Tom Leith that there are a great number of PHRF measurers and volunteers who would love to see more boats on the line. They want to group boats of similar performance together. If we help them find a way to include sport boats in a fair way in PHRF regattas....they will appreciate it.
Viper - Mambo Kings
Right Coast Refreshments Committee

Thomas Leith

And to build a bit on Justin's comment, apropos this:

> so they just check other regions and make an average

I perfectly well understand why some PHRF committees want to do something simpleminded. But!

Point out to them that right in the front matter of the red white & blue book (they'll know what that is) it tells them specifically that taking an average (i.e. arithmetic mean) of ratings can lead to a poor result, and the better statistic to use is the median. This doesn't come from me, it doesn't come from you, it comes from the PHRF technical leadership and it is in black & white.

So the simpleminded and not-too-bad thing to do if the "anchor" sportboat at your local club is the M24

1) Subtract the median M24 rating from the median Viper rating from all clubs*
2) Add that delta to the local club's M24 rating to get the Viper rating

This is the mostest simplest thing to do and frankly should be fair enough period for a mixed fleet race. But if you're at SF Bay, you may want to squeeze the ratings closer together by 3 or if you're at Chesapeake you may want to widen the delta by 3 -- that might be a little fairer. Maybe. If they don't want to do this bit, forget about it and go sailing. Three seconds per nautical mile is PHRF's "just noticeable difference" and is basically is no difference at all. FWIW, SoCal seems extreme to me at 27 s/nmi delta.

*always ignore clubs reporting "zero" boats when finding medians.

Justin says:

> If you can articulate a clearly defined wish list for our class with regard to PHRF,
> I will carry it to the US Sailing PHRF Committee.

Well, if VPP output for M24 & M20 & Viper & whatever else is available, maybe this could be sanity-checked against the PHRF ratings (or vice-versa) and make some recommendations. But this files in the face of the PHRF ethos.

> If we help them find a way to include sport boats in a fair way
> in PHRF regattas....they will appreciate it.

The only way to do this that will be seen as "fair" is to move the sport boats into their own division. Mainly you'll want to get boats that plane into a division separate from boats that don't no matter what the numerical value of their ratings happen to be. So in a pinch, ULDBs like Olson 30 & Hobie 33 could be in this division as well. Maybe the J-92s. Mixing in the ULDBs is a bit of a stretch but not horrible. These guys won't like racing with M24 & Vipers though -- they claim it isn't fair (and it is fair they should race with J-105???)

Ben Jacobsen

^ that won't work, J24, 22s, 30s 35s 37s etc all plane if you get them going fast enough.  About the only boats that won't are shields and 12m... :lol:

just group like boats with like boats and come to grips with the way PHRF works (no wind factor) is that lighter plaining boats win in heavier air and displacement boats win in the light...  If you sail in one or the other 99% of the time then maybe consider an adjustment.

Olaf Bleck

#42
Quote from: Justin Scott on September 08, 2011, 11:08:39 PM

If you can articulate a clearly defined wish list for our class with regard to PHRF, I will carry it to the US Sailing PHRF Committee.


Let's start with PHRF-NE  dropping the "U".

While it's not in their bylaws, it says in their faq:

Quote

What is meant by Unofficial Handicap?  Official PHRF New England Handicaps are given to true cruiser/racer type boats. In general this means that the boat has the equipment required by the Offshore Racing Council Equipment for Category 4. A quick indication of likely conformance is if the boat has furniture inside. It must also have auxiliary power.

In cases where the boat is not a true cruiser/racer, an Unofficial Handicap may be given. This assists clubs that might allow a boat to race more informal races. These Unofficial Handicaps can never be used in a serious race. If the Notice of Race says that ORC Cat 4 equipment is required, the Unofficial Handicap is not acceptable.


as quoted earlier, the bylaws say:

Quote

Preamble: "It is the intent of PHRF-NE handicapping that any well-equipped, well-maintained, and well-sailed boat has a good chance to win; and that any boat that wins a PHRF-NE race is indeed well- equipped, well-maintained, and well-sailed."

and

"8.1.1 Only single hulled cruiser/racer boats will be issued official handicap certificates.. "


Clearly there is some someone's personal twist of the rules here...

East Coast: Viper #56;  West Coast: Viper #24 (available for charter)

Thomas Leith

> group like boats with like boats and come to grips
> with the way PHRF works (no wind factor)

Right. Do the best you can to do and go sail. Especially since PHRF has ho wind factor, it works really well for windspeeds between about 8 & 16. Outside that range it falls apart even if you do manage to make "good" divisions. In the light stuff, the best light air crews will win (almost) regardless of their rating -- above 16 the best boat-handling crews will win.

PHRF works remarkably well given what it is -- so yeah, come to grips with what it is and go have fun with it. I guess bitching about PHRF is fun, but listening to skippers bitching about PHRF is not fun, so don't do it.

Jason Hyerstay

I'm just sick of giving time to a J/92 that always waterlines us. They rate 105, and we rate 102. I tried the M24 delta argument, but the number of regions that LC PHRF cross-compares with is small and don't necessarily all I'm hoping next year we can put together a sportboat fleet.

jason
Jason Hyerstay - Streetwise - Viper 640 #195 - Lake Champlain Yacht Club, Shelburne, Vermont, USA, https://lcyc.info