Rating Benefit for Smaller Jibs?

As reported at the PCYC board meeting Tuesday evening, going with a smaller jib has no effect on the downwind PHRF rating. It might affect the closed coarse PHRF rating, and it might affect the ORR rating, but for Pac Cup racers in PHRF divisions it looks like there's no benefit leaving the big jibs home. 

Which is probably a good thing, because back when we got 6 sec/mile small jib credit, that translated to four hours "for free" at the finish line. And it also reduced cabin clutter and weight. It was an especially nice option for cruising boats that didn't have much in the way of good light air jibs anyway. But it was a gamble, and about one out of three years you would end up spending a day or two beating in light air with with a 125 or smaller.

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This happened on the boat I was on in 2000. After two days of beating into 5-10 knots of wind with our largest jib, a heavy 110, we were really kicking ourselves for opting for the small jib crecit. Then, while looking for a flat spinnaker (we were going to try going upwind with it) we found a bag up in the forepeak labelled "drifter."

This was a terrible discovery. We had an illegal sail for our rating. Should we fess up to the RC and risk a DSQ?, or throw it overboard? We decided that it was a good faith mistake that did not benefit us in any way, and we would just stuff it back in the forepeak and not mention it ever again.

But then, a few hours later, in even less wind, we had an idea. We had scisors, We had a tape measure. We had lots of sail repair tape. We could pull out that drifter and make it into a legal 125, which would be much better for the conditiona than our poor old heavy 110.

So we were all set up to go into the sailmaking business right on the foredeck. But when we pulled the "drifter" out of the bag we found, not a 155% drifter, but a 100% "windseeker" or some such. No foul, but no opportunity to build a new sail either.

A few hours later the wind came up.

</sea story>

"Call me Fishmeal"