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Dave-
A PHRF rating will never be fair, or correct, or exact. It is at best a way to lumping similar beasts together. If you dig around online you will probably be able to find the different ratings applied to that "same" boat in each PHRF fleet in the country at which point your first question is probably why all the ratings are different if the boat is the same.
Well, PHRF blithely ignores the fact that there are different wind conditions in different parts of the country, which the local fleets adjust for. And it presumes perfect triangle courses, which many courses often are not. It is also a moving target, and you will find ratings adjusted typically in each of the first three years that a certain boat has been regularly competing--if there have been any regular competitors--to reflect how it has performed.
If a local skipper has been a duffer with old sails and consistently run slower than the rating, it may be (unfairly to everyone else) adjusted down. Then someone else comes along, a real master with new sails, and all of a sudden he's beating the ratings. Unfair again.
That's just the way it goes. PHRF isn't fair, it isn't perfect, it has limited abilities to be locally corrected and adjusted over the long term. For the folks who don't like it, there's not much to be gained by complaining. Appealing, if there's a good reason, yes. But basically if you don't like it? You race one-design or some other system, where the rules may be "fairer" or clearer.
That's just the way it is.
Or you stick to PHRF, don't worry about the silverware, and just concentrate on finding ways to sail faster. I know guys who have a 40-gallon fuel tank, who will only put in four or five gallons because "that's enough for today" and anything more is just going to slow down the boat. The winners? Pretty much are all thinking that way, and not just about weight.
A PHRF rating will never be fair, or correct, or exact. It is at best a way to lumping similar beasts together. If you dig around online you will probably be able to find the different ratings applied to that "same" boat in each PHRF fleet in the country at which point your first question is probably why all the ratings are different if the boat is the same.
Well, PHRF blithely ignores the fact that there are different wind conditions in different parts of the country, which the local fleets adjust for. And it presumes perfect triangle courses, which many courses often are not. It is also a moving target, and you will find ratings adjusted typically in each of the first three years that a certain boat has been regularly competing--if there have been any regular competitors--to reflect how it has performed.
If a local skipper has been a duffer with old sails and consistently run slower than the rating, it may be (unfairly to everyone else) adjusted down. Then someone else comes along, a real master with new sails, and all of a sudden he's beating the ratings. Unfair again.
That's just the way it goes. PHRF isn't fair, it isn't perfect, it has limited abilities to be locally corrected and adjusted over the long term. For the folks who don't like it, there's not much to be gained by complaining. Appealing, if there's a good reason, yes. But basically if you don't like it? You race one-design or some other system, where the rules may be "fairer" or clearer.
That's just the way it is.
Or you stick to PHRF, don't worry about the silverware, and just concentrate on finding ways to sail faster. I know guys who have a 40-gallon fuel tank, who will only put in four or five gallons because "that's enough for today" and anything more is just going to slow down the boat. The winners? Pretty much are all thinking that way, and not just about weight.
