2022 Racing Update!
Published 14:11 on 7 Apr 2022
It was great to have so many members join us on Wednesday for Fish and Chips, a drink, and a talk about the plans the Sailing Committee have made for racing at Spinnaker Sailing Club through the rest of 2022! Below is a short summary of some of the key points that were shared, along with links to some of the videos, resources and other information we mentioned.
For Those Newer to Sailing or Racing:
Please do come and join the fun, all our members regardless of age, experience or ability are welcome and encouraged to join in! We are a very friendly group and are always delighted to welcome new sailors to the race course, and are very happy to answer any questions you may have either before or after the racing. If you are a little nervous and would like other sailors to know this please ask for a red streamer from the race hut. This acts like "P" plates on a car and lets other racers know you are new to racing.
Race Programme:
The racing programmes for 2022 can be found at this page on our website along with some Youtube videos explaining everything. There are separate PDFs available for our Wednesday Evening and Weekend Racing Programmes. For 2022 there are other 160 races planned, with a mixture of Handicap, Personal Handicap Pursuit, Pure Pursuit and Sprint formats, as well as Open Meetings for our most popular classes. New additions to the programme for this year are the Jubilee 8 Hour Endurance Race on Saturday 4th June, and the return of our 2 day Club Championships in October (which will also include class starts for popular classes)!
Race Officer Resources:
On this page of our website are a number of guides and resources to assist Race Officers in running racing, and if you are interested in why Race Officers do certain things, or how racing works, they are a great way to see what the Race Officer thinks about!
New Pursuit Race Starting System:
To make the starts of our Pursuit Races easier to manage, and easier to understand for sailors, we are bringing in a new system for 2022. John Driscoll has calculated all our start times for us, with the longest any boat is racing 1 hour, each class has been assigned a numbered which indicates the time it should start. 3 minutes before the first boat starts we will run our normal flag sequence to start the race, and at go "00" will be displayed on a number board at the race hut (or on the Committee Vessel). After this each minute there will be a sound signal, and the next number displayed, indicating who is due to start, and allowing racers on the water to easily see how long it is until their start!
For more details on how our Pursuit Races work and to find out what time you start at (there's also a handy Youtube video as well) please visit this page on our website. The updated start times for pursuit races can also be found on the Official Noticeboard in the Clubhouse, and at the Race Hut.
Changes to Our Start Line:
In a change to previous years the start line for racing from the Race Hut is now from the staff flying the orange flag, to the Mark Flying a Blue Flag, there is no metal transit triangle anymore.
Quirks of Racing at Spinnaker Sailing Club:
To help make racing on the lake as fun, accessible and easy as possible we have made a few tweaks to the standard Racing Rules of Sailing. Full details can be seen in the Club Sailing Instructions a few highlights are below:
- During Club Racing if you infringe a rule from Part 2 (such as Port/Starboard, Windward/Leeward, Room at a Mark etc.), which are the most commonly known rules, then you can exonerate yourself with a 360 rather than a 720
- During Club Racing Rule 31 (touching a mark) is changed so that if you touch a part of the flag on a mark, not including the part around the staff, and the flag remains on the buoy you have not breached a rule
- Our Club Racing Starts are 3, 2, 1, Go
Last updated 09:41 on 20 December 2023
