PHRF

The Performance Handicap Racing Fleet is the empirical handicap used for most club racing in North America. Instead of measuring a boat it assigns a rating in seconds per mile from the observed performance of the class, adjusted by local fleets for sails and equipment, and corrects finish times on a time-on-distance or time-on-time basis. It is cheaper and simpler than IRC or ORC because it needs no measurement certificate, at the cost of being a fleet opinion rather than a science.