PHRFed!

AHMEN II was on Sat. and I was crew challenged. Chris was the only confirmed crew member and he phoned from the middle of Lake Ontario to report that he had experienced more "Joys of Boat Ownership" and would not make it. The winds were supposed to be light so I thought it was OK to go with 3. Emi, who has sailed with me on Wednesdays, and Jamie. We had a brief crew meeting before launch and we agreed that Emi would do pit and Jamie was good for foredeck.

The wind was from the north so no problem getting out to the Start. We had another good turnout of boats. Jazz joined our fleet. They were the only participant in last week's AHMEN. The course was designed as a panhandle: south, then east all the way to the eastern Harbour entrance, then west to Gibraltar, north to Dufferin, south to "3", and then east to Gibraltar. The start was set for a beam reach point of sail to the first mark. (The first mark was west of the start.) We had an excellent start and were ahead of the fleet. However as we approached Centre Island we elected to drop the chute while others didn't. This allowed us to sail a more direct course. We were more inshore and the winds died while those that stayed more offshore gained. As we approached the eastern Harbour entrance buoy, the wind started to fill in from the south. We took off and by the time we got back to Gibraltar we had caught up to the fleet. Heading north the winds became increasingly light and patchy, however we were able to stay on port all the way to the western mark. Unfortunately we were now lead boat and my GPS was wrong! OOPs. A crowd rounded together. We were able to sort through the traffic and had a great run to the finish. I think we were one of the first boats to finish. It felt great. We handled the boat well and worked well as a team.

We ended up with a 4th !!. The first place finisher was 12 minutes behind, 2nd was 11, and third was 8. I feel we have been PHRFed. We appeared to do really well; the PHRF reality was a bit of a shock. An important lesson: perception is not reality?

The problem with PHRF on long races is that when the wind dies you basically restart but the rating will be for the full race. In this case we meet a wind well about an hour before the finish. All boats sailed to the "well" and stopped, waiting for the wind to fill before "restarting". We drifted together about an hour before the finish so our 12, 11, and 8 time difference should have been for a 60 min. race and not a 3 hour one. Ah, so perception is not reality?