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2008 National PHRF Appeal |
On October 1, 2008, a hearing panel of the US Sailing PHRF National Appeals Committee ruled as follows:
"The buoy area rating and the general rating for Lizzie B should be assigned at 129."
Here is the official written decision. As a result of the 2008 appeal, our Area B and Regional Buoy ratings will be 129 (the RLC and OWC ratings will remain at 132).
Our USPHRF appeals in 2005 and 2008 apparently have caused some confusion. Hopefully, this page adds transparency to the process by giving background and details of the two appeals. Our 2005 appeal is separately described in more detail here.
Set forth to the right is a chart showing how the Mariah 27 should rate under SoCal PHRF based on how the Mariah 27 rates elsewhere in the country when compared to some similar and standard boats. [For the record, this chart was included in the Appeal Document for our 2005 appeal. The same information was again presented in our Appeal Document for the 2008 appeal although in a slightly different format. The underlying ratings haven't changed.] For example, elsewhere in the country a Mariah 27 configured the same as our boat gets 65.2 sec/mi from the J/35. In MDR, the J/35 rates 69 sec/mi so the predicted rating for the Mariah 27 in MDR is 134.2 sec/mi (69 sec/mi + 65.2 sec/mi). Our new rating of 129, assigned by USPHRF, is still about 9 sec/mi faster than is predicted by comparing the Mariah 27 to boats elsewhere in the country. As the chart shows, it clearly is not a "gift" rating.
History
Back in 1998, the rating for Lizzie B was dropped from 132 to 123 by SoCal PHRF. As a result, Dick Hampikian (Lizzie B's co-owner back in 1998 and sole owner today) started promoting Americap II, on a local, regional and national basis. Over the next 3 years (1999, 2000 and 2001) we sailed exclusively under Americap II.
In 2002, Americap II was not offered as an option so we switched back to PHRF. In 2005, we appealed our rating of 123 to the US Sailing PHRF National Appeals Committee, asking for a more fair and accurate rating consistent with the rating for the Mariah 27 elsewhere in the country (where the same boat would rate 135-144). The hearing panel for our 2005 USPHRF appeal assigned a rating of 132. Under the requirements of USPHRF that rating was fixed until October 2007.
At its February 2008 meeting, the Area B Board decided to initiate a review of our boat. We are told this was only the second board-initiated review since 1995 (the other being the review of our boat back in 1998). The Area B Board considered our boat at its March and April meetings and decided to assign a local Area B adjustment of -9 sec/mi to our Buoy rating. The adjustment was calculated by applying a mathematical formula to our 2007 resutls. That changed the rating under which we sail in the Sunset Series from 132 back to 123. We appealed the Area B adjustment to the Regional Board, which denied our appeal (thus sustaining the Area B adjustment) at its April 2008 meeting. We then filed our appeal with USPHRF as described below.
Procedures for Appealling to USPHRF
Step #1 is to download the USPHRF national appeal form (available here) and fill it out. Step #2 is to provide a copy of the completed form (the "Appeal Document") to SoCal PHRF, which we did on April 25, 2008. Under the policies and procedures of USPHRF, SoCal PHRF was then required to counter-sign our Appeal Document, which they initially refused to do. After some discussion with US Sailing, SoCal PHRF finally counter-signed our document on June 18, 2008 and we filed the counter-signed Appeal Document (together with the filing fee, etc.) with the USPHRF National Appeals Committee on June 20, 2008. Although it could have filed a written response to our Appeal Document, SoCal PHRF chose not to do so.
Shortly thereafter, the Chairman of the USPHRF National Appeals Committee appointed a three-member hearing panel to consider our appeal. The members of the hearing panel were from three different areas of the country: Chesapeake Bay, Houston and Southern California and had extensive experience with PHRF handicaps (none of the three was on the hearing panel for our 2005 appeal). On September 22, 2008 a hearing was held via telephone conference. Each side was allowed 10 minutes to present its case (5 min by Lizzie B, 5 min by SoCal PHRF, 5 more min. by Lizzie B and a final 5 min. by SoCal PHRF). The three members of the hearing panel then posed additional questions to the representatives from Lizzie B and SoCal PHRF. The hearing panel then excused the representatives of the two parties to deliberate. The hearing panel delivered its decision in writing nine days later, on October 1st.
Arguments for Rating Change
When in Feb. and March 2008 the Area B Board was discussing whether to change our rating, the primary thing that they said concerned them was that we appeared to win "too much" in 2007. In fact, after the new rating was assigned they told us they came up with the new rating by applying a mathematical formula to our results. We pointed out that "winning too much" was a concept used in "golf handicapping," not in PHRF handicapping. We asked: "What is the difference between the 'golf handicapping' system used in the Cruising Classes for the Sunset Series [each boat's rating is adjusted after each race] and the PHRF handicapping system?" The answer was: "PHRF doesn't change your rating after EVERY race!" We went on to present results showing that many other boats have records comparable to and even better than ours but the Area B Board said that information wasn't relevant to whether WE "won too much." We pointed out the obvious - that trying to decide whether a boat wins "too much" is highly subjective and undoubtedly each person could have a different opinion on that. Therefore, using such a criteria for determining ratings seems highly inappropriate to us. In the end, it is nothing more than a popularity contest with the PHRF Board acting as judges.
In our view, the Area B Board applied "golf handicapping" principles pure and simple. One of the Board members even specifically confirmed that (for the record, other Board members have since said that they do not consider the process of adjusting ratings based on race results to be "golf handicapping"; apparently, there is a difference of opinion among local Board members as to what they did). According to the website for the PHRF Comm. of US Sailing, PHRF is supposed to be about determining and handicapping the inherent speed potential of boats. Boats that are equally well-sailed and well-prepared should have an equal chance of winning. But, a boat that is better-sailed and/or better-prepared than her competitors should win more often. Even the Chair of the Area B Board admitted that we are a very well-sailed and well-prepared boat so the fact that we win is not surprising. A former President of SoCal PHRF who sails against us has written that in his opinion there is no better-prepared boat in Marina del Rey.
PHRF ratings are based only on the inherent speed potential of a boat. So, in setting a PHRF rating you must factor out crew-skill and boat-prep. We pointed out that if you only have one boat of a particular type and that boat is well-sailed and well-prepared then it is almost impossible to separate crew-skill and boat-prep from inherent speed potential merely by looking at race results (as a practical matter, in club-level racing crew-skill and boat-prep are far more important to race results than ratings!). Instead, you need to consider other relevant data such as how the same boat type rates under PHRFelsewhere and how the boat rates under other rating and handicap systems. The Area B Board said such data was "not relevant" and although it looked at the data we presented it declined to consider it when setting our rating. On appeal, the Regional Board said that it thought such data should be considered but since it sustained the decision of the Area B Board without explanation one must assume that they gave such data little or no weight.
At the USPHRF hearing, we presented the arguments above. Plus, we pointed out that sistership ratings under PHRF elsewhere indicate that our boat should rate 137-145. And, MORC and Americap ratings indicate that we should rate 146-149. Taken together, we argued for a rating of 135-138. SoCal PHRF relied primarily on a "they win too much" argument. They didn't talk about any specific rating. They didn't dispute any of our data. Except for refering to how many trophies (1st, 2nd or 3rd) we got in 2008, they didn't present any data of their own. They did refer to the so-called High/Low/Average handicaps list from USPHRF.