Lake racing
Kim, I'm at the other end of the chart with my E-23 phrf-ing at 234 with the roller up front. I feel your pain, and since you probably aren't the only one fighting the A-Fleet blues, you might propose that your club give a rating break to non-spinnaker boats. Lots of clubs do that, and it makes for fairer and more competitive events. Generally, there seems to be about a 21 second adjustment, so that a boat that rates 150 with spinnaker would rate 171 without, and theoretically both could go against each other on an even basis. Since the spinnaker boat is only flying the chute half the time (approx), it only has that advantage half the time, so it must actually make up 42 seconds every mile going downwind - but I suspect that is about right. I'm lucky that my club has three fleets: Spinnaker, Non-spinnaker A, and Non-spinnaker B. The first is dominated by J-24s, Merit 25s, Olson 30, J-80, and Rocket 22. The second is for prepped out, high tech equipped boats sailed by experienced crews - all phrfs are represented, and consistency counts for a lot. The guy who won the club championship last year in A had no wins but lots of seconds and showed up for every race. The third class, B, is for boats that are sailed recreationally more than they are raced - like mine. They generally have sleeping and/or cooking gear and there is sort of an unspoken agreement not to trick them out too much, though you know how that works. Ratings range from 165 to 252, and the competition is terrific - last year in the fall series 5 boats had wins in 7 races, and one who didn't win any took a 2nd by 11 seconds. So, depending on how many boats you guys have, you might want to create one more class. The bottom line is that if the rules hurt any boat badly enough, it is liable not to come back, and that hurts everyone. I don't believe that a boat should be helped so much by regulations that it is almost guaranteed a win, but I do believe that boats can be hurt so much by the rules that they have little chance of being competitive - and that is where the club starts losing members. One problem I have noticed is that rules committees are usually the old stalwarts who tend to have fast, high tech boats and see cruisers as "floating condos." Their experience and knowledge is a big plus, but their unwillingness to encourage new, green, untested but eager racers or casual cruisers who want to give it a try causes some to quit before finding out how much fun it really can be.