I'm going to post this reply because while Bert means well, I don't agree with his viewpoints at times and I want to present what accurately transpired for this race.

First, for race organizers of offshore events like this, there needs to be a clear distinction between beach cats and PHRF multihulls and my recommendation to the GYA for this race next year will be that a PHRF rated multihull is one that has a cabin with shelter for the crew and auxiliary power. This is the type of boat the race organizer intended to include for this race in the NOR and they were totally unprepared for the requests to have beach cat participation so the title of this thread was somewhat misleading to begin with.

If there is a group of beach cat sailors that want to participate in this race, my recommendation is that as a group (the best route is probably through the GYA multihull council chairman David Johnson) they should draft a proposal on how beach cats racing on the Portsmouth handicap system can be integrated into this event with their own separate start, safety rules, and awards. The race organizers were not thinking of beach cats when they included a multihull division in the NOR this year. They were thinking of the past participation of Corsair trimarans and the Reynolds 33 in this race. We're trying to get PHRF multihulls back and at one point we thought we had 5 boats committed this year but it dropped back to two. The race organizers were caught off guard and confused when it was (at least it seemed to me) "somewhat rammed down their throats" that they accept beach cats as entries. That was not done well IMO.

Regarding the safety rules that were finalized for our entry, there is a set of GYA multihull safety recommendations that are not mandatory but are a tool for race organizers. The issues I raised were that the OA had taken the recommendations and changed all of them to mandatory for all the items on the list. This list is broad and general and not specific. I will do a followup with the race organizer on what items make sense for PHRF multihulls. At one point we were being required to wear PFD's and tethers at ALL times during the race and for each person on the boat to have their own personal EPIRB or PLB on them at all times. That is where I calculated my expense to comply with this as being nearly $1,400. For the record, we had the same safety gear as the monohulls, we wore our PFD's (that had water activated strobes, whistles, and personal flares) after dusk through dawn, and we had tethers and jacklines on board to be used at my discretion as the owner of the boat. The OA admitted to me that they had not read the recommendations when they drafted the NOR, they simply "checked off all the boxes" without considering the real intent or application of the recommendations.

Since we had only two entries (our Sprint 750 and David Saint's Sprint 750), we were not eligible for a class award but the race organizer did generously provide one at the awards ceremony. Our goal was to have fun and have a good race against the fast (i.e. PHRF A) monohulls. We made a request to start with the PHRF A class and I'm pleased to say that even though the PRO was initially reluctant to do this, the other PHRF A competitors lobbied after the skipper's meeting to get us on the line with them. Even though the overall fleet corrected times for the overall awards would not include us, it made for a fun race to see who finished where both boat for boat and on corrected. While Decision (at a PHRF of -42) was the scratch boat, I was pretty amazed they beat us by less than one hour across the finish line (they needed to beat us by about 125 minutes to correct out, our rating was 33). We had an awesome race with the new J-111 Zydeco being steered by Tornado Olympic medalist Johnny Lovell. On the 12 mile beat out of Mississippi Sound to the Gulfport channel entrance in only 5-7 knots of breeze, we were pretty much boat for boat trading tacks and the only boat ahead of us was Decision. I was really pleased to see us ahead of a Cal 48, J-125, a couple of Beneteau 40.7's, a B-32, a J-35 and others on our 24' Corsair trimaran. We had speed and height with these boats so I don't think they can present an argument that tris can't point. Zydeco got past us right at the top of the beat as we sailed for the wrong channel marker that we had to leave to port to head out to the Gulf. We grind them back down on the next 7 mile reach as the breeze picked up to 8-10 knots and then stayed ahead of them but in sight of each other for the remainder of the race (the breeze pretty much stayed in the 6-10 knot range for us until the finish). At times, I thought we were 15-20 minutes ahead of them but at the finish, we crossed the line 2nd boat overall and 12 seconds shy of the 10 minutes we had to finish ahead of them elapsed to correct out (they rated 39). That's what I call a close race. In the overall corrected times for the entire 32 boat fleet, we were third with Zydeco in 2nd and the very well sailed Cal 48 Tiare in first (this boat has sailed this event over 40 times). The light air and long downwind leg after the Gulfport channel really worked for Tiare as she squared off and sailed dead downwind at times exceeding the course VMG us, Zydeco, Decision, and all the other sprit/A-sail boats were doing. She's a beautiful, extremely well maintained yacht and her win was very well received.

My focus will be to bring a class of 4-5 PHRF multi's next year to this event. I hope they will continue to let us start with the PHRF A boats as there is a barn door trophy and to make it fair for the boats that can compete for that award, they have to all start together. While some of the race organizers still seemed kind of "cool" to our participation and the requests we made, I think our fellow monohull competitors enjoyed having us to race against. At least that was the feedback I got at the awards presentation.

Cheers,

Bob Hodges