J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Class legal mainsail

jmruzzi,

Please excuse me if my comments seem to be an attack. I'm an academic researcher. I argue for a living.

Honestly, I suppose none of this matters to me. My PHRF fleet lets me race PHRF base, and it seems unlikely that I'll ever manage to load her up on her trailer and head off to a J30 OD event. but...

I don't find my statement bogus at all. Do we get counted buy race or by boat? At any rate, how many areas have active J30 OD racing? Ches_Bay seems to be most of it. A bit more here and there occasionally on the East Coast? (How much?) Some in Chicago. An occasional invited event in New Orelans (Do they manage to race OD in NO any other time?). Is there anything else? Anywhere?

So, about how many J30s race in at least one OD event each year? 50 (50/545 = 9%)? The class site still seems to be goobered from the recent hacking, but in 2001 there are a few events listed that I expect account for almost all J30s that race OD. I count less than 35 boats (35/545 = 6%). Was there anyone else not listed that raced OD in 2001? A few I'd guess, but not many.

How many boats have been measured as class legal in the last 5 years? 10 years? How many truely class legal J30s exist? I guess few and there will be fewer as the boats continue to age and pass to new owners with projects in mind.

How many race in at least one PHRF race each year? I admit this is hard to guess but 250 (including most of those mentioned above)? (250/545 = 46%).

Should Ches_Bay (and maybe Chicago) dictate the conditions under which the majority of J30s race?

Mark

I certainly think Mark is probably close to correct on the numbers of active racing 30's, but...

I do think having a strong one design rule is very important both in terms of sustaining quality OD racing, and helping the boats hold value. Since the largest OD contingent is based in the Chesapeake, it is only common sense that rule modifications would emanate from there. However, I think it would be a good idea to have a governing body that includes some sailors who race both PHRF and OD, and I do think sail restrictions should be liberalized.

'Nuff said.

Amen.

Though I wish it weren't true, all of the J/30 racing here on Loch Mich is PHRF. We're not even able to get 8 boats for the NOOD these days (though I hope that will change next year).

There are 6.5 active boats here in Chicago, doing probably 15-25 races/season.

I still think however that for me, remaining J/30 one design is more cost effective. Just one opinion however.

Mark, I'm a systems engineer and program evaluator, I look at the big picture for a living (and get into more than a few arguments). The reason there is a class is because a group of people committed to one-design sailing has kept it alive for almost 25 years. There is a process for changing the rules and it's been that way since the rules were codified. Nobody _dictates_ anything! We have been through this process several times in my involvement with the class to change other rules. We have a set of District Governors who are the governing board. _Anything_ which changes the rules has to be done through the current process. It's not just a case of Annapolis-based sailors sitting around and thinking "hmmmm...let's not change the rules just to screw the PHRF sailors". Nothing could be further from the truth. The governing body is composed mostly of people who sail both PHRF and one-design. In fact, the current J/30 Class co-Presidents are Carl Sherter and John McArthur from Long Island Sound and the past-President is Dennis Bartley from Chicago. Both of these sailors, sail more PHRF races then one-design (as Dennis stated above). Look at the Governing Board page on this site. As I count it, the Chesapeake Bay has exactly one sailor listed on the Governing Board, Larry Christy who is the Ches. Bay District Governor and Class Measurer. We've been down the sail change road before and we've made changes when they have been shown to be cost-effective. Dennis Bartley, in the posting above, echoed that sentiment.

A light #1 will not turn a J/30 into a light-air sled -- it ain't gonna happen! Is a J/30 slower than a S-2 9.1 in light air? Yes, I think it will be. Could it have more than a little to do with a masthead genoa and the ability to project more surface area (472 vs 444 sq ft for 100% sail area)? Perhaps .... I know where I'd bet.

Another question is, will a light 155% be significantly faster than a slightly heavier 163%? I don't think so. Notice, we're not talking about bulletproof storm-sail material here, the rule is 3.5 oz material. The laminated genoa is not heavy material. We weighed genoas about 3-4 yrs ago when we were considering a change to a "bag weight" rule for the genoa, We found that the high tech constructions were no lighter than conventional mylar laminates. How many folks have actually gotten a bunch of genoas and weighed them? We're talking empirical data here! This is what one-design people do in the interest of the class.

A year of so earlier, we brought in a bunch of sailmakers to discuss changes in the inventory. Some of them had run velocity prediction programs to evaluate changes ... again real data, not speculation. Their consensus was that there wasn't a cost-effective reason to change the laminated mylar genoa or the cross-cut main. On the chute, they were specifically asked to look at polyester spinnaker cloth, because that was all the rage. They felt that it wasn't a good option for us. In fact, their comment was "we could make a lot of money selling you guys these sails because they would explode the first time your chute emptied and filled, but we don't think that would be good for the class." The one change that they had a consensus on was the move to a kevlar #3 because of the better high wind tolerance of kevlar vice the dacron material. The Governing Board then voted to change the rules to allow Kevlar #3s for the following season. No one is trying to go back to Egyptian cotton sails dyed with tan-bark. It's a question of having real data and then following the Class' process for making a change to the rules.

Whew, I feel better now! :-) As Mark said before, this is not meant to be an attack on anyone. I do however, feel strongly about these issues.


[This message has been edited by jmruzzi (edited 08-28-2003).]

Kevlar is not as good as the sharkskin mains built by North Sails in New Orleans. I have a 8 year old Kevlar J/30 main if anyone is looking...

Warning, this is a long post, based on what I learned while J/30 Class President. By 1999 (the last time I had control over the Class database) we had accounted for 409 boats. I sailed on hull #1 in Miami in the 1988 Midwinter's and sailed past #547 in 1995 on my way to the NA's. First, there are not 547 boats. The records indicate a 25-hull gap between 149 and 175, probably unrealized overseas production. After deducting the J/30s reported lost, including six in Hurricane Alicia in 1983 at Houston YC I figure there are about 500 left. So I was aware of about 80% of the J/30s remaining.

The 'vocal minority' of J/30 owners in this forum are racers of two types. One-design sailors have something they wish to protect and perpetuate. PHRF racers either enjoy playing the handicappers game or accept it as their lot in life for choosing a boat, club, or a home port that doesn't have a one-design fleet at all, or at least not in a boat of their liking.

So, it might surprise to learn that most J/30s are cruisers. The two biggest factors for choosing a J/30 (after choosing a size and price range) are the head and the inboard diesel engine. Perceived performance comes next. Some, but not many, buy the boat because they wish to race one-design.

Here's a breakdown by region. Chesapeake Bay has about 65 boats accounted for. Half are cruisers or inactive racers. So far in 2003, 25 have raced one-design on the weekends or Wednesday nights. About ten more sail PHRF in their home port, with all but a couple using strictly one-design sails and equipment. Long Island Sound has more than 60 boats with 30 active racers. Cedar Point has a nice one-design fleet of about a ten boats. There's a pocket of boats in City Island/Manhasset/Larchmont. The rest, spread out on both sides of the Sound are club racers: Riverside to Black Rock. Oyster Bay to Port Jefferson. They rarely leave their own harbor to do a J/30 or YRA race. Most have class sails but may carry a PHRF size/cloth genoa or kite.

Southern New England (RI, Buzzards Bay, Nantucket) with at least 70 boats has the largest percentage of cruisers. When there is a local NA regatta, they generate about 10 boats that have no problem qualifying under class rules. Chicago has a dozen or so, half racing, primarily using class sails but in PHRF races. New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf coast is working towards a nice fleet (10+), and appears to be making the transition from pure PHRF (with GYA's the crazy 170% genoa limit) to class sails.

That's more than half of the boats accounted for (240+/-). I'd estimate that about 120 are racing one-design or in class trim and 10-12 are using non-conforming sails or equipment.

J/30 Fleet 1 was in Holland Michigan. Once upon a time (1981) there were 'Fleets' in Marina del Rey, Lake Ontario, Puget Sound, Portland (Maine & Oregon), Galveston, Atlantic City, Detroit and Miami. Some never got off the ground, others died off. The J/30s in these areas have no alternative but to race handicap. Or go cruising, which based on hundreds of phone calls and emails I get or have gotten over the years is what the unaccounted for J/30s do. I routinely search around the country, using the internet for other J/30s that are racing in far off places. I rarely find one I haven't seen or heard of before.

In the last four-year NA cycle (Barrington RI, Chicago, Cedar Point CT, and Annapolis) 57 different boat/owner combinations have sailed in the NA's. During the ten years prior to that, there were a total of 161. During that entire period, only about 4 or 5 boats that I can think of had to put away their PHRF rags and buy or borrow class sails.

So I'd say a more reasonable assessment is that one-design (and one-design suited) racers probably exceed those with PHRF sails, probably by a ratio of at least 2:1.

Enough said for now. I'll save my opinions on handicapping and sails for another time.

Clearly, Bob has a deeper knowledge of this issue than I can claim. However, I think his totals are distorted by his casual insertion of the fact that some boats w/ primarily OD inventories also carry some sails outside class limits. I know several boats that race OD at the NA's that also have inventories of sails that are not class legal.

The problem with the class rules (in my opinion) is that they limit sail purchases to one set of class legal sails per year. This rule makes no note of PHRF boats, who can (depending on wallet size) buy limitless PHRF sails and still qualify for OD sailing under the one set of class sails per year rule. The only limit on sail purchases for PHRF/OD boats is set by the degree to which local PHRF governors insist on class inventory limits (this seems to vary greatly by district).

I still maintain that the best solution (offered before without any response from the class association) would be a slight expansion of inventory limits to include a light 1 and 1/2 oz chute coupled with a limit on total sail purchases of any kind (say 3 per year), in order to insure competitiveness for boats racing PHRF without incurring increased cost, while at the same time not causing conflict with local district regulations.

I also think several races at this years NA's would have been even more exciting if a 1/2 oz chute was available to use when conditions went light.

I know for a fact that purchase per year limits have been considered in the past; why not couple those with a slightly more PHRF friendly set of inventory limits?

I race against a well sailed 9.1 on Lake Michigan all of the time. When the wind is under 8 kts, neither a light #1 nor a .5 oz chute would be enough to make up for their speed advantage. The only way we can (and sometimes do) beat them is being smarter or make fewer mistakes.

The other side of the coin, once the wind gets above 12 the tables are turned.

Though I wasn't at the NAs this year, I somehow don't think a 1/2 oz. would have made the light stuff any less frustrating.

If sailing one-design is not an option in your area and it's PHRF or nothing, then you must get involved in the handicapping process. Or at least try to enforce the ratings on the race course, something that almost never occurs. Even where PHRF grants one-design ratings they can and do allow you to violate those very rules and specs on which the rating is based. An easy example is our owner-driver rule-- PHRF is unlikely to change your rating if you let someone else drive. So find out what they allow. If they let you carry two #1s, two kites, or a carbon pole, get it in writing before you spend your $dollars.

I have little enthusiasm for adding two additional $2+K sails, increasing my inventory by 40%. Stricter replacement limits means that in addition to choosing which sail to use in a race, I also have to decide which to replace (light or heavy, ¾ or .5) before the next big regatta. All for maybe a couple seconds per mile, which in a PHRF race is unlikely to make a difference. Meanwhile the PHRF competition can buy new sails anytime they want.

Although I don't have any official say in these decisions any longer, it may be time to relax the material restrictions on the #1 and #2. The restrictions on the #3 were eliminated in 1997. Our Dacron #3 was new the previous year, so it took six years for us to switch to Kevlar. During the intervening years I don't think we were at a disadvantage, but the new #3 is a better sail. While I'm a supporter of keeping the #2, several people have suggested it be made optional since they never use it. I also think we are approaching the stage where it makes sense to switch to a carbon fiber pole. The cost differential is shrinking and most people have 20-25 year old poles.


[This message has been edited by Bob Rutsch (edited 10-08-2003).]