Gunbat Elvis in Ft. Lauderdale to Key West Race. A Rating of 5, Really

[B30]

Jason Carol’s Gunboat Elvis just won the the Ft. Lauderdale to Key West Race on corrected time. Jason Carol runs a top notch program in what ever boat he is involved in. He and his crew are very accomplished sailors. I do however have to scratch my head at this corrected time win. How did a 62' boat touted as being the fastest cruising cat around and a monohull race boat killer get such a slow PHRF rating? I race on a Corsair 37' trimaran, also a crusing boat, that does not have nearly the hype, size, or power of a Gunboat and we rate -25 and can win occasionally at that rating. One of the top boats in the New England area is a stock Corsair Dash 750. It is a 25' family pocket cruiser and it also rates 5 sailed by one of the better sailors in the area. Is the million dollar ++ Gunboat 62 really not any faster than the $75,000 Dash?

The results below show Gunboat finishing a little over an hour behind the -87 rating Seacart 30, but correcting almost 3 hours ahead! Over the 160 mile course the Gunboat sailed about 27 seconds a mile slower that the Seacart, yet was owed 93 seconds a mile by it. It seemed impossible for Elvis to lose.

Am I missing something here?

1

USA 6204 Elvis Gunboat Jason Carroll 5.0 17/Jan/13 - 05:59:44 0:16:34:44 0:16:21:23 1 1 2

USA 14 Sundog Seacart 30 Paul Parks -87.0 17/Jan/13 - 04:47:34 0:15:22:34 0:19:14:34 2 2 3

USA 64 Flight Simulator Corsair 28R Tom Reese 18.0 17/Jan/13 - 12:46:10 0:23:21:10 0:22:33:09 3 3 4

USA 46 Tri-Vector Dragonfly 35 David Otto 0.0 17/Jan/13 - 13:22:54 0:23:57:54 0:23:57:53 4 4

 

[Bull Gator]

A travesty of justice. That rating was bought and paid for.

 

[JoeyG]

Last year in the same race they were given a rating of -37 so I dont know what happened here.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

dunno about that; the SeaCart should be a lot faster than the Gunboat in a lot of conditions yet they only beat the GB by an hour. explain that please Soma?

 

[Bull Gator]

Water line - for the most part pretty light conditions

 

[MR.CLEAN]

how would waterline help in light conditions on a relatively heavy cat? Some kind of special physics?

Elvis is no lightweight, and they had an entire Melges 32 crew aboard it seems.

Sorry I don't know more, but I do know Elvis and she ain't no racer, nor are any of the Gunboats. Hell of a cruiser though, and with some of the best one-design sailors anywhere helping make her go fast last week.

 

[munt]

waterline is very important, especially in lighter air.

 

[cazza]

There are very few 30 footers that are quicker than a GB 62 offshore, and in a breeze i suspect there would be even less.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

having been on both a SC and a GB62, there ain't a lot of conditions where it would even be close, especially if the GB was loaded to the gills with booze, food, and crew. That being said, if the multihull and monohull rating numbers for the race are correlated, it's a little nutty to see a GB62 rate slower than a Farr 40.

 

[richardsstephens]

Last year the race was light air, and Elvis did not seem to be fast. We kept pace with them in the F28R Flight Simulator for quite a long time, and they did not pull ahead until the Miami mark. This year, wind was moderate again, and they were clearly a lot faster than us right from the start. My guess is the difference was just the crew. There is no doubt they sailed well this year, whatever the rating.

 

[richardsstephens]

Another boat that surprised us this year was Tri-Vector, a Dragonfly 35. She had a nice looking set of new Smyth sails, and Randy Smyth on board. With that talent on board and a rating of 0, we did not expect to be ahead! Maybe the boat was heavily loaded.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

http://sailinganarchy.com/2013/01/21/gunning-for-key-west/

 

[MR.CLEAN]

Mr. Clean-I don't doubt for a minute that a Seacart should smoke a GB. Not even close. I don't have any reason to believe that Elvis wasn't sailed well. But Elvis (since you've seen it last) has been turbo'ed, and a 3 hour corrected time victory is pretty big. Big enough to lead me to the conclusion that the rating isn't quite fair.

Side note-in 25+ offshore a GB would do pretty well against a SC.

fair enough soma; i don't know how much work Jason has had his speed team put into the Elvis, so it could be a ridiculous rating; then again, when the 62 did the Mac it would have been killed even with about a 50 rating.

As you know i sailed the Phaedo - the most turbo of the 66s - in some pretty sporty conditions and IMO a SeaCart would've killed us in everything but a really bumpy reach or beat. I can't imagine Elvis is much faster than Phaedo.

 

[AClass USA 230]

Jason Carol’s Gunboat Elvis just won the the Ft. Lauderdale to Key West Race on corrected time. Jason Carol runs a top notch program in what ever boat he is involved in. He and his crew are very accomplished sailors. I do however have to scratch my head at this corrected time win. How did a 62' boat touted as being the fastest cruising cat around and a monohull race boat killer get such a slow PHRF rating? I race on a Corsair 37' trimaran, also a crusing boat, that does not have nearly the hype, size, or power of a Gunboat and we rate -25 and can win occasionally at that rating. One of the top boats in the New England area is a stock Corsair Dash 750. It is a 25' family pocket cruiser and it also rates 5 sailed by one of the better sailors in the area. Is the million dollar ++ Gunboat 62 really not any faster than the $75,000 Dash?

The results below show Gunboat finishing a little over an hour behind the -87 rating Seacart 30, but correcting almost 3 hours ahead! Over the 160 mile course the Gunboat sailed about 27 seconds a mile slower that the Seacart, yet was owed 93 seconds a mile by it. It seemed impossible for Elvis to lose.

Am I missing something here?

I don't think you are missing a thing. Based on Flight Simulator's rating of 18, it looks like they were using the PHRF ratings we use at the Trimaran and Corsair national championships. My Sprint 750 Mk I rates 33 (and at this time I believe so will the Dash's and Sprint Mk II's for future PHRF multihull events). A Corsair 31R rates -30 and I think the cruising versions of the 31 rate in the negative teens. Hard to believe a 31 would owe time to a GB62 in that race.

Richard - Did Randy or Tom (assuming Tom Reese was on Flight Simulator) say anything to the rating guys at this event about it?

We saw the same type of rating mystery last year in St. Maarten at the Heineken Regatta. A Corsair 37 and several 40-50 foot tri's owed time to the Nigel Iren's custom tri Paradox which is over 60' long and is more racer than cruiser. I was sailing on a Gunboat 66 and the 37 owed us time at that event. On the Gunboat we were the third fastest boat upwind (Paradox and Dauphine Telecom were faster) probably due to waterline but the smaller boats were faster downwind. Everyone was seeing downwind speeds in the high teens to low 20's at that event.

I think the Seacart has its work cut out upwind and possibly two sail close reaching against a well sailed GB 62/66 in big wind and seas. Turn the bow off the wind a bit more it will be gone as long as you keep the bows up!

 

[Speng]

I dunno why people here in the US think rating multis is rocket science, funny enough over in Europe they have multi rating systems and they don't come up with such utterly ridiculous handicaps. And yeah I know Gunboats vary but didn't Phaedo beat all the Open60s and a bunch of mini-maxis etc etc in the last Fastnet race? Part of the problem is that every area of the country has some different rating for multis - some are PHRF style, some are measurement - and none of them bear any relationship to each other. If I have a Melges 24 I reckon my PHRF rating is +/-5 anywhere in the country +/-10 at the worst. Sorry but there is no justification for such silliness. And this is not one of those mono vs multi things as in most places the multi guys make up their own ratings and they can't come up with something that can be used from one part of the country to another, so what do you expect when some mono guys tries to rate a multi.

 

[AClass USA 230]

I dunno why people here in the US think rating multis is rocket science, funny enough over in Europe they have multi rating systems and they don't come up with such utterly ridiculous handicaps. And yeah I know Gunboats vary but didn't Phaedo beat all the Open60s and a bunch of mini-maxis etc etc in the last Fastnet race? Part of the problem is that every area of the country has some different rating for multis - some are PHRF style, some are measurement - and none of them bear any relationship to each other. If I have a Melges 24 I reckon my PHRF rating is +/-5 anywhere in the country +/-10 at the worst. Sorry but there is no justification for such silliness. And this is not one of those mono vs multi things as in most places the multi guys make up their own ratings and they can't come up with something that can be used from one part of the country to another, so what do you expect when some mono guys tries to rate a multi.

You make very valid points!

 

[βhyde]

+1

Believe it or not, we (SF BAMA) have an F31R that is rated at 60. My F-24II rates 69. Sprints/Dashs rate 33.

Yeah, it's a complete crap shoot.

 

[JoeyG]

I still find it interesting that the GB got a 42 second/mile gift over last year while the SC kept its same rating from 2 years ago.

 

[mowgli]

Take Texel, Multi2000 or Australian OMR rule they are open and have no secrets you can even calculate the rating your self.