Protection Is. 1 Race Results and Series Standings – May 13, 2023

Ten boats came out for a hot, cloudless and initially almost windless day.

A change to the Sailing Instructions was announced. There were to be two Starts – First (A flag) Every boat that was not a Thunderbird, Second (B flag) Thunderbirds.

This is part of an effort to improve competition in the PHRF fleet. To paraphrase “The Thunderbirds have been winning so much, they got tired of winning”.  The T-birds elapsed time would be measured from the first Start. The Thunderbird PHRF rating has been temporarily reduced from 195 to 150 sec/mi (included in the results below) to evaluate the effect on fair competition.

As the breeze had stabilized (NNE) and showed signs of slowly increasing, and the boats had good steerage-way, the first start sequence began on time. But, the breeze did not continue to rise and the windless patches on the water, all the way into the inlet, did not dissipate so the start was Postponed. A ten minute delay was announced to let the wind better fill the bay.

For the second start attempt the wind was more consistent, if only a little stronger. Importantly, with the big tides running, there now appeared to be wind in the inlet. Two clean starts.

Seeing the long finish times reported, particularly the long periods between boats, spoke to concentration and frustration chasing down wind gusts and tidal eddies. However, a report was received that it was a “Good Race”. The tenacity prize goes to Mighty Sparrow for single handing for almost 9 hours.