Role of the Race Officer

Hints for Running Good Racing.

Be aware of the BRSC Starting and operational procedures including the one minute rule. Volunteer to help the Race Officer in order to learn the ropes. There is also a list of suggested courses which you can use.

Safety:- Although the safety of the individual boat lies with its skipper, the ultimate responsibility for those on the water lies with the Race Officer. He must weigh up the weather conditions, the sailing ability of those racing, and the quality of his safety assets, both the boats and the personnel available to operate them.

Weather:-The weather can be followed a couple of days before the race in order to assess where the fronts are and what conditions are likely. Suggested sites are windguru surfline, bbc weather, windfinder, predict wind. To check what might be appearing current wind on the Lymington starting platform, Hurst, the Brambles or Cowes can be used. It is also possible to see approaching fronts by their cloud formation or the boats being overpowered in the Solent.

The Briefing:- Do insist on a briefing, it is essential for those racing and helping. With increasing emphasis on liability the RYA recommend it as a strong defence in the event of a mishap. The briefing should cover:- Weather, and if necessary, reefing, the course and how safety boats are deployed on the water. There should also be a “return to shore” signal.

Safety Boat:- How safety boats are deployed eg one in a sector, usually downwind, and one accompanying the fleet. Concentrate safety boats on the latter half of the fleet where more are likely to require assistance. (Safety boats should be able to reach a competitor in the water within 3 minutes)

VHF Check:- Check radios can transmit and receive on channel P4. When at Needs Ore monitor Ch.68 for marine traffic.

Marks and course:- Confirm all the racing marks are in place. What to do if you need help. eg reach the bank and wait. Suggest that sailors nervous of the gusts might want to wear round rather the mark rather than gybe.

Courses

What do competitors want ?

1. A course that provides different points of sailing
2. With opportunities for overtaking , and opportunities for tactical decisions relating to Tide and Wind.

These are not best met by courses that contain a lot of reaching, where overtaking is rarely possible. – Boring !

So we want:

A course which challenges the boat handling skills of the competitors:

Ideally with:-

• Fair starting lines
• Challenging Windward legs
• Down wind legs with Gybing options
• Down wind marks with Gybe rounding
• Tidal and navigational choices.

If you can work some or all of these options into the race course you will have succeeded. Not always easy on a confined River !

You also need to time the course to give a good race duration – if the conditions are light it is a good idea to have the fleet passing through the finishing line on each lap to allow the option of shortening if it gets too light.

It is good practice to warn the fleet from the safety boat that they will be shortened, although this is not always possible. Need good VHF Comms!

The Sailing area used is also important , if it is windy , choose the parts of the river with well-defined banks e.g. not much further down river than Island, competitors in difficulty then have the option to park on the bank and wait for assistance.

Regarding wind strength, – more of an issue at Needs, we consider force five as our upper limit , but there are days when the gust ratio will lead to this level being exceeded, the RO should study the weather before hand using a good weather app like Predict Wind, compare the gusts to the mean wind ,and be aware that when frontal conditions are mixing air masses, , the tall cumulonimbus clouds generated can contain some serious gusts.

If conditions are marginal consider a compulsory reef for all competitors, which allows our Scows to remain more controllable. Also the land effect can also help to drop the wind with friction, so moving the course inland up the Gins reach will also help.

I would still consider setting Gybe marks in these conditions but remind competitors that they can always wear around if hitting a gusty patch.

The downwind gybe mark is an obvious place to position one of the safety boats.

Finally on safety, some of our races finish on a generous member’s jetty ! Remember the RO remains responsible until then fleet is safely home. Safety boats should be retained and one should act as sweeper. The breeze can often pick up in late afternoon with a sea breeze effect lower down the reach towards Needs clubhouse , sometimes gusting to 20+k so consider reefing for a more comfortable return !

Starting:

At Factory Field with westerly winds, try to start in the direction which is most to Windward, and work the beat into the course as soon as possible. At Factory Field the very shifty wind will tend to sort the fleet out and sometimes but not always remove bunching.

At Needs Ore the line tends to be pretty fair for most conditions, ironically being square to the south-westerly presents the biggest problem due to the short distance to C Clubhouse.

In a large fleet such as on Regatta days this could be problematic and the race officer should try to move the buoy as far west as possible and consider laying an additional Temporary mark to the north ie starboard side of C as the first windward mark.

This mark and C are both rounded to port, with a short reach between the two, this is in effect using a spreader mark which means that Boats rounding do not initially bear away into the approaching fleet.

Do try to avoid running starts, they are intrinsically unfair as very few boats can get away cleanly , taking each other’s wind ,and bad Bunching can occur at the first leeward mark.

In my suggestions for courses at Needs it is basically to use the Island reach for winds in the South West, or East quadrant, whilst the Gins reach works well for NW Northerly and Southerly directions, eg if South, a first beat to Pigs, will give a windward element to the start.

Finally, which way to go round the mark?, Here you will have to use your judgement as wind and tide conditions dictate the rounding, the key is not to have the fleet hooking the buoy and going back into the approaching Boats and this is best demonstrated with a sketch or two..