Bob,
A couple of comments; first, do I understand you to acknowledge that the non-dacron main is faster? Wow!
Second, I take no penalty for having a non-dacron main. Our local PHRF organization has no restrictions on sail cloth.
To your points that I could choose to race one design or work to develop a one design fleet in the area; Using our club as a center point, there are 5 J/30's in mid to western lake Erie/Lake St. Clair that race: one in Cleveland (70 miles away), one in Lorain, Oh(50-60 miles away), one in Detroit (40 miles away) and two at the our local club (mine and one other). There have been and contiues to be attempts to rally the J/30's to race one design. As recently as 3 weeks ago, (after the "54 mile race"), I spoke at lenght with the other J/30 owner about trying to do just one J/30 event either this year or next. I doubt that we will be successful. We've attempted to rally support for doing one design at the 2008 Detroit NOODS - there was not enough interest. If we were lucky enough to put together a Lake Erie one design event, we would have to exempt the main sail cloth rule as most if not all do not have dacron mains - let alone deal with boats that don't have class #1's and boats that years ago cut their pole or their kites.
We are racing the boat PHRF and perfoming quite well and using that performance to encourge others to buy J/30's (looks like we might get one other J/30 at our club next year- dependent on the sale of his O'Day 34). Three boats isn't a fleet but it's a start.
And BTY, so I could keep the boat close to class configuration, a few years ago I appealed and won a rating change for J/30's on Lake Erie to reduce the penaly for the oversized chute since we already take a 3 second penalty for the pole (a class boat now carries 6 seconds of penalty). But to the point, during that appeal process, in 2004 there were only 12 J/30's listed with our PHRF organization (on all of Lake Erie). Those 12 boats are scattered over 300 miles, race in different areas and sail with significantly different agendas. Of those 12 boats, I have only actually seen 4 of them! And per the input from the folks at PHRF, most were modified in an attempt to reduce some or all of the 9 seconds of penalty the class boats carried. If you have constructive input or want to come out and help us to organize one design sailing on Lake Erie, please, we welcome your assistance.
And to your point of me racing one design, I would have to buy a trailer ($3500-$4000), pay $800 every time I want to haul the boat (in and out fee charged by my local marina) and tow the boat 250 miles to Chicago or 750 miles to Boston @ $4.00 per gallon and 7 miles per gallon for the truck. Would I do it? Probably; considering I spent just under $7k to truck my boat to Key West and back in 2006 only to break the boom after two days of racing.
I'd love to race one design. I'm sure I would learn to make the boat sail faster by watching,getting beat and learning from the experienced one design sailors.
But I won't do it with a Dacron Main!
I got one call from someone in Chicago several years ago asking me about the rule change on the head sail material. In that conversation I mentioned the issue of the main. I was asked if I would participate in Western Lake Michigan one design events if they waved the main rule. I said yes. I have never heard from the gentleman again.
I campaign and promote the boat, I've worked with local PHRF to make the boat more competitive. I work with local J/30 owners to attempt 1 design sailing. And now I'm working to try to take away one more barrier for local sailors to be interested in J-30's. I think you are quite a bit off base to say that "I'm playing a different game with a different set or rules" I'm playing in the same game with the cards that I'm dealt!