Early last week I got a call from my friend Ron Sherry who was signed on to drive the Pinball Wizard a 1997 Farr 50 looking for a tactician for the up coming Chicago Verve Cup. Im not the biggest fan of PHRF racing but I couldn't turn down Ron and the chance to do some local big boat sailing. It turned out to be a good choice we had perfect sailing conditions all three days, lots of sunshine and the Chicago airshow happening overhead. Ron is a great driver; he really focuses on keeping the boat going fast all the time so I knew that straight line boat speed wasn't going to be a problem. On day one we had our best results in the light breeze where the "Wizard" seemed to sail above her -47 PHRF rating and we won all 3 races by over 1 minute. As the breeze picked up on Saturday we had a harder time saving our time on the similar sized boats that we owed 23 to 30 seconds per mile under the PHRF rule. We managed to stay constant though and maintained our 5 point lead from day 1 over the 2nd place boat "Mirage" and crossed the line first in every race. The unfortunate thing about PHRF is that after the first upwind all the lower rated boats just play a game of follow the leader trying to keep there times close.  At this point as the lead boat  you are just trying to sail as clean as possible and minimize maneuvers in hopes that the boats behind start hurting each other fighting for clear air and position. Goblin was supposed to be our closest competition but they never were in the mix for line honors. In fact under the ORR rule used in the Chicago Mac Race the Goblin actually would have been the scratch boat and we would have owed the eventual winner Mirage significantly less time then under the PHRF rule so the rating game was stacked against us. Even with all the unfavorable rating going into the last race we were 4 points clear in 1st place in a 8 boat fleet and holding all the tie breakers with 3 first place finishes a pretty strong position. Unfortunately in the last race some poor boat handling got the best of us and a round up out of gybe caused one of the steering cables to break leaving us out of control and scrabbling to get the chute and main down and the boat under control. In hindsight all we needed to do was finish last in the last race to win the event, really too bad. I think I was pushing too hard in the breeze, knowing that we were 5 points in the clear it probably would have been best to throttle back a bit and try to time our turn for the lighter pressure. I am pretty pleased with how we positioned ourselves and executed for 95% of the event. Sailing with Ron as a driver is great he is all about going fast and if you get him good lanes and on the lifted tack chances are your going be in good shape. It is amazing utilizing lessons learned in extremely competitive and talented one design classes like the Star and match racing settings can make sailing in weekend PHRF seem really easy. Next up is a two day Melges 24 event in Traverse City and then some Star training in Seneca NY which I am really looking forward too.