Race Officer Guidance

Take with You

Flags - class flag, P, S and X (ideally also AP and 1st sub.)
A hooter and a back up for sound signals
Pencil/paper or other means of recording times, remembering they may get wet Race sheets are here.
At least one (preferably two) digital watches, clocks or timers that show normal clock time
VHF set to Ch 8 (club communicatons) and dual watch on Ch 16 (coastguard)
Course boards in their display pockets - note there are different course boards for yachts and dinghies.
All gear necessary for acting as safety boat

Setting the Course

Select a course shape, e.g. sausage or triangle for dinghies (see Dinghy Courses) or a yacht course using the fixed marks and some movable marks (see Yacht Courses).
Lay the movable marks. Note the wind direction, set the marks that are going to be the spine of the course first, the windward and leeward marks. Use a flag at either mark to make sure that the line between these marks is as close to the average wind direction as you can make it.
Lay the two startline marks so that they are perpendicular to the first leg and downwind of the upwind mark. It's not optimal to have the start/finish line at the midpoint of a leg. The boats need to pass through the startline on every lap and we want to give the boats as much space as possible to spread out and find clean wind or exploit local differences in conditions. Laying the start line relatively close to the leeward end allows for more decision making on the part of the competitors.
Where possible, for dinghies specify port rounding of the marks, the racing rules work smoother that way. Starboard roundings may occasionally be useful, e.g. to allow a triangular course to be kept closer to the shore. For yachts, port and starboard mark roundings will both usually be necessary, specify a port rounding of the windward mark if possible.
Do not specify any number of laps - we use average laps so that slow boats do not have to do the same number of laps as faster boats. (Yachts will generally do the same number of laps.)
Communicate the course to the racing boats, e.g. using course boards on the RIB and/or verbally (hailing or VHF). Course boards are preferred as there can be no miscommunication.

Starting

Position your committee boat so that you can look precisely along the start line. This is easily done by laying an anchor upwind of one end of the line and adjusting the scope of your anchor line until you are in position. If in the RIB, you should attach a small buoy to the end of the anchorline in the boat so that if you need to quickly cast off to help in an emergency you save the time of retrieving the anchor, the anchor is not lost and you can return to your position easily to take the finishing times.
Give a couple of hoots to check the hooter is working and to warn the sailors that something is about to happen.
Yachts use a 5 minute sequence and dinghies a 3 minute sequence.
At 3 minutes (5 for yachts), raise the class flag and sound the hooter.
At 2 minutes (4 for yachts), raise the P flag and sound the hooter.
At 1 minute, lower the P flag and sound the hooter.
At 0 minutes, lower the class flag and sound the hooter - the race has now started.
If any part of any boats are over the line raise the X flag and sound the hooter again. Keep the X flag raised until all premature starters have started correctly. If they don't, lower it after 5 minutes and mark them as OCS (disqualified for being "On Course Side" at the start).
If you can't tell which boats were over the line, call a general recall (sound the hooter and raise the 1st Sub flag, after everyone has returned drop the flag and start the sequence again.)
If something goes wrong, e.g. a timing error, and the boats haven't started raise the Answering Pennant to indicate a postponement. When you are ready to go again, lower the AP and a minute later restart the sequence. If the boats have started, do a general recall (raise the 1st sub) and restart the race.

Finishing

We schedule 3 dingy races on a typical race day so you should aim for a dinghy race to finish after say 25-30 minutes making total time on the water around 2 hours. We schedule 2 yacht races on a typical day, so the yachts races can be longer.
Raise the S flag (and keep it raised) and sound two hoots - all boats will now finish the next time they pass through the finish line
The best time to raise the S flag is just before the leading boat has rounded the final mark. Don't leave it until boats are close to the finish line as tactics can be different on a final leg.
When all boats have finished or retired, lower the S flag
An easy mistake to make with the triangle-sausage course is to forget that boats only complete a lap after completing both a triangle and a sausage. After going upwind to complete a triangle, they still need to complete a sausage. This is ensures each lap is the same length for average lap calculations.

Recording

Always use clock time (civil time), not elapsed time, preferably in 24 hour format.
For each race, record the actual start time (and not the time you start the countdown sequence.)
For each boat, record the time they pass through the finish line on each lap. If the S flag is flying, mark an X after the time to confirm that this is their finish time.
If a boat retires before passing though the finish line with the S flag raised, they are scored Did Not Finish.
Take care to specify the size of rig a laser is using and the number of crew in a Pico or Feva as this effects the handicap.

Sternchase Details

Sternchases are summarised here and further details follow.

Sternchase races are designed to maintain the excitement of close racing throughout; instead of the faster boats disappearing into the distance they are given their handicap at the start crossing the line later than the slower boats.

The principle of a sternchase is that boats start at different times, but if they all race to handicap they should cross the finish line at the same time. The finishing positions of boats in the race are exactly as they are on the water at the finish time. We have a one hour and a 90 minute option for the race.

Each boat will have a predetermined start time based on its handicap, so that slow boats start before fast boats. The finish time is also predetermined and is the same for all boats. At the finish time, the race places are determined solely by the positions of boats on the water (the computer is not needed!).

The RO kit will contain a flip board displaying numbers allowing you to count down the minutes as they pass and display the progress to the fleet.

A boat's start time is the time on a count-down clock (actually flip cards) at which it starts.
- For example in a 60 minute race,a Solo with a handicap of 1143 has a start time of 50 minutes. When the count-down clock registers 50, it starts.
- An RS200 with a handicap of 1047 has a start time of 46 minutes and when the count-down clock registers 46 it also starts.
- The race finishes simultaneously for all boats, e.g. 50 minutes after the Solo's start time and 46 minutes after the RS200s start time.

The start times for each boat are shown here based on PY numbers for dinghies and FYCA handicaps for yachts. They are calculated (e.g. by the Sailing Committee) by dividing the boat's handicap by the handicap of a base boat with a PY number of 1200 and multiplying it by the maximum race time.
- The beauty of this approach is you can remind yourself of your start time if you know your boat's handicap. For the 60 minute race, simply divide by 20 and round to the nearest minute. For the 90 minute race, add half on again.

At least 5 minutes before the first boat is due to start, the Race Officer raises the class flag and makes a sound signal. They display the count-down time and with every passing minute reduce this by one minute. This means no waiting about for classes that haven't come to the race, the RO can check his list of start times against the classes that are present and start his countdown 5 minutes before the start time of the first boat to go.

As each boat crosses the start line, the Race Officer checks that it has not started too early. If it has, the X flag is displayed in the normal way with a sound signal. The boat may restart after coming back across the line.

A few minutes before the scheduled end time of the race, boats should converge, typically towards the line between their last mark and their next mark.

At the finish time, the Race Officer should lower the class flag, give a sound signal and record the relative positions of the boats on the water.

Attributes of a Good Course

Start Line:
- A fair start line set perpendicular to the mean wind direction
- Start line length should equal the combined length of the boats in a start plus between 10 to 50% depending on conditions. Our yachts range from 24 feet to 31 feet long so allow approx 30 feet per yacht in the race. Allow 15 feet per dinghy.

Mark placement:

The yacht marks are arranged to give you a windward leeward axis to base your course around from many different wind directions, however it is still up to you to place your start line and if necessary drop a mark to make the best course.

Ideally we want a windward mark directly upwind of the downwind mark and start line if applicable, this allows the fleet to split and tack in different directions, this introduces tactical choices to the race, if all boats go in one direction - only boat speed features. Equally when returning on the run, if the marks are well set, boats have the choice of which gybe to take first and again, split the fleet.

Watch the fleet as they sail the course, are they bunching up at the line? Perhaps the end they all started at is favoured, consider moving that mark back away from the windward mark for the next race.
Did they split on the windward leg? Is the windward mark in the middle of the directions the yachts on different tacks are pointing in? On the way back downwind are the yachts travelling directly downwind and on different gybes or are they broad reaching? If the latter, your marks could need moving, maybe the wind direction has changed? Is the change temporary or here to stay?

Line placement:
- Keep the start line closer to the leeward mark to allow the boats to split further apart, if you place the line in the middle of the leg, you force the boats to converge and stick closer to the middle line.
Leg length:

Shorter legs test crew work more often and are arguably more interesting, however a longer windward and leeward leg allows the fleet to split further apart so a balance must be struck.

Course Length:
- shorter courses can make use average laps in case a boat is lagging far behind the fleet, not all boats need to do the same number of laps. Stop the tailender a lap earlier than the fleet so you can restart the next race more quickly.
- The longest distance between two fixed yacht marks is 1 nm (E-R, E-N, R-N), the distance from any mark to the Inner mark is approximately 0.6nm. This information should allow you to set a course length that will bring the yachts home in the desired amount of time in order to beat the tide or schedule another race.
- Our yachts would make 4kts in a force 3 up to 6 kts in heavier winds, (remember on a beat the yachts can’t make a straight line from mark to mark and the leg length will be 40% longer.)
Port or starboard?:
- Port rounding of a windward mark is preferred as the rules work better (it’s not as important around the rest of the course). For dinghies, there is seldom any good reason nor to specify port rounding for all marks - the only reason not to is if starboard roundings keep the course closer to shore, when conditions are difficult. For yachts a good course will often require some starboard roundings.

Example : D N I E

If the wind is roughly from the North, you may set the course as shown above, displaying :

D N I E

This gives a true beat to the dropped mark, a rough run downwind from North to Inner, a close reach and a broad reach. Port roundings, a windward start and finish and no hook finish, which we would have if we didn’t use E to round before the line (hook finishes are never allowed). In addition it keeps the RIB close to the dinghy sailing area in case of an emergency with the funsail that the other safety boat requires assistance with.

The course is about 3nm long should take 30 minutes to 45 minutes in a decent breeze.

There are many other solutions and possible courses to set which would also work well from this wind direction.

Combined Yacht and dinghy races

in order to free up more weekend days for training and special events, the sailing committee are keen to run some combined yacht and dinghy race days this season. Apart from at regattas, this is something new for the club and as such, there might be some trepidation from both the sailors and race officials. Multiple starts and fleets are the norm at clubs all across the sailing world and once you have raced the format a few times you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. Below is some discussion and guidance as to how we want these days to proceed, I will also post this to our website in case you want to review it throughout the season.

TLDR:

Changes to Sailing Instructions for mixed dinghy and yacht race days:

Both fleets will have a start sequence of 5 minutes.
Starts will be sequential starting with the yachts first and immediately followed by the dinghies.
- The go signal for the yachts will be the 5 minute signal for the dinghies.
If a general recall is signalled the fleet’s start will be moved to the end of the sequence.
There is a starting time limit of 4 minutes past your starting signal, if you fail to start within this window you will be considered as DNS.

No need to panic:

The rules of sailing apply equally between boats in different fleets, there is no “might is right” clause that give yachts special treatment, port vs starboard, leeward versus windward, everyone is equal, of course the wind shadow of a 30 foot yacht will be more substantial than that of a pico so you will have to adjust your tactics. Please bear in mind that there is an onus on both boats to comply with the rules when they meet and thus, vitally, behave in a predictable manner. For example with a port / starboard meeting, while its common parlance to call the boat on starboard tack the “right of way” boat, it is also the “stand on” boat and should not alter its heading or speed.

if you were nervous, an initial reaction might be to create two vastly different courses for the yachts and dinghies so the fleets won’t mix. However, that is doubling the amount of work you need the race team to do in dropping marks and the amount of marks they need to move if there is a wind shift and all the boats will need to converge at the start / finish line anyway.

If we put boats on different courses, we can even cause additional problems for the sailors. If two boat’s proper course when they meet is sailing to two different marks of the course there can be unexpected interactions. Consider a yacht reaching through the dinghy fleet who are all on a run for example.

Or a yacht and dinghy meeting at the windward mark, the yacht wants to turn all the way onto a run while the dinghy wants to go onto a close reach.

And a cardinal rule for a race officer would be that anytime a mark is shared between the fleets, they should be rounding it the same way!

So we shouldn’t worry about trying to separate the fleets, we need to just let the rules of sailing apply and do their magic to let everyone know what to expect when two boats meet.

The scenario we want to avoid is trying to start a race with boats from the other fleet passing through still racing. All the boats in the starting / finishing area have a right to be there however they have very different goals in mind at that point and potentially different rules applying. So how do we avoid this?

We could make sure we finish both fleets at the same time and start them again in sequence for the second race.

On a standard race day the dinghies expect 3 races and the yachts expect 2 races.

The merit is simplicity, both fleets stop at the same time, both fleets sail the same course. The difficulty, or the trick of it, is picking the right time to stop the fleets and that in turn is a function of getting the size of the course correct in the first place.

Size of the course,

We need to consider the make up of the boats we are running races for. We have a wide spread of speeds in both fleets, but they should be quite similar across the two, lasers and the bigger yachts will move at comparable speeds, picos and the smaller yachts will tend to move more slowly. You would chose a different course size if it was only one speed of boat sailing in a particular race than with a mixed fleet.

If we make the course size small (relative the conditions - a short leg on a windy day might be far too long on a light wind day) the boats will loop around several extra times meaning more paperwork for the committee boat time recorders, the race course will be more congested and there will be more occurrences of boats meeting either mid course or at marks of the course.

However it will be easy to stop a race and have everyone finish relatively quickly.

The length of a race will be a multiple of the slowest boat’s lap time. If it takes a pico, as the slowest boat, 20 minutes to complete a lap, the options to stop the race are at 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes.

If it only takes the pico 10 minutes, you get twice as many options to stop the race and half the average waiting time before you can start the next race.

If the course is too large (say it takes the pico 30 minutes) you have no options but to stop at that point and you stop the fast boats up to 10 minutes earlier or up to ten minutes later or more likely a mixture of the two meaning a lot of waiting around for someone. It also means boats are further apart, no real tactics or interactions, more of a time trial and a bit boring.

The Goldilocks Zone

This is essentially one of the soft skills of becoming a good RO, assessing the conditions and the make up of the fleets and arriving at a goldilocks course size. Also watching the progress of the boats and identifying a good time to raise the S flag and stop the boats. Bear in mind, once the S flag is raised it cannot be dropped again so if you are stopping the pico, you can’t let the laser behind it have another lap. You also don’t want to split a group of boats who are having a good race - say 4 lasers, all pretty close on the water and a pico in the middle you want to finish, you need to raise the S flag early and finish all the lasers on the same round - if you let the first 2 go around again they could encounter issues like a calm patch or a capsize which would drop them from their leading position while their opponents didn’t have to race in those conditions and take those risks.

If you run race one and aren’t happy with the course size having seen it in action, you should 100% take some time to move the marks, same applies if the conditions are changing.

If a race is essentially over and has become a parade as the boats are spread out and there are no battles going on for position, I’d be inclined to stop the race earlier rather than later and get on with the next one which might be a bit more exciting.

Placement of the course.

We have a habit of trying to incorporate the fixed east mark into every race day at FYC, this does keep the boats very close to the launching area and allows for quick rescues (or boats hitting the beach before a rescue can be affected) and often sheltered sailing, however it is rarely the best placement of the course.

Why?

Well the beach and shallow water at the mouth of the Esk rule out a large area of the race course, in any swell the harbour wall can make very confused reflected seas and we often stuff the course into too small an area. Capsizing dinghies in shallow water puts stress on the sails and mast as they don’t have the depth to turn fully turtle.

We should not shy away from taking the whole course several hundred yards further out and utilise the area off the back sands (far enough out to not worry about other water users and swimmers). The yachts need at least 2 metres of water to manoeuvre in and tend to travel further out either side of the start line during pre start manoeuvres.

Start Sequence and flags

Yachts will start first, dinghies should vacate the starting area at this point.

Give some hoots to draw attention, make sure you have the course identifying board displayed (TP - triangle to Port etc) yachts like the course and the timings of each flag announced on channel 8 of the VHF as they are generally not hanging around close to the committee boat especially around dinghies.

We will use 5 minute starts for both fleets to allow time for late starters to cross the line and get clear. If you are more than 4 minutes late for your start, you are too late, you can’t interrupt the following start sequence.

5 minutes to go - sound signal - raise the yacht class flag (numeral 1 white pennant with red circle)

4 minutes to go - sound signal - raise the P flag

1 minute to go - sound signal - drop the P flag

GO - drop the yacht class flag - check start for anyone on course side (OCS) and individual or general recall as required with additional sound signals.

At the same time we drop the yacht class flag we raise the dinghy class flag (W) - this is 5 minutes to go

4 minutes to go - sound signal - raise the P flag

1 minute to go - sound signal - lower the P flag

Go - sound signal - lower the class flag, check start for anyone on course side (OCS) and individual or general recall as required.

Individual or general recall???? Can you identify who was OCS at the start?

If yes (even if it is everyone except one boat) then it’s an individual recall, keep the flag up and ensure everyone recrosses the line within four minutes, if not then they are disqualified as OCS.

If you cannot tell which boats are over the line (even if it was only 1) then you need to do a general recall, if it was the yachts then their start will happen after the dinghy sequence which is underway. They should vacate the start line area.

You will probably have now realised that we need to ensure the course length is more than 5 minutes for the fastest boats or they will be trying to come through our start line at the worst possible moment.

Finishing Signals

Raising the S flag - ideal scenario is to give two sound signals and raise the S flag before the boats you want to finish have rounded the leeward mark (the last mark before the finish), this gives them a chance to sail for the closest end of the line. However with average laps we might be wanting to send a fast boat around one more time before the slow boat we are targeting finishes and we can’t raise the S flag until they are through.

If we are finishing both fleets just the S flag is sufficient.

If we are stopping one fleet only we raise the fleet class flag along with the S flag. If we wanted to change this to now stopping both fleets we would give another sound signal and drop the class flag

Hints and tips:

It is important to use the clock time with seconds, not a stopwatch as the timings are different for both fleets.

It is a great idea to video starts (to identify OCS) and to video finishes so you can check your work and have a back up incase the results pages get wet. It is also a great idea to take a photo of the results pages after each race for the same reason.

In 10 knots of breeze (force 3) fast yachts and lasers might be moving at 4 to 5 knots so a mile every 12 minutes, they max out around 6.5 knots in a force 5.

Pico speed tends to depend upon the experience of the sailor and we do want to include everyone we can in the fun of racing.

So if we make the course 1 nautical mile long in these conditions fast boats should take 10 minutes which is enough to have the start line cleared but not too long to overtax the slower boats and reduce your RO options.

If on a particular day (say its windy) no slow boats have turned out then you have the opportunity to set a longer course.

Changes to Sailing Instructions for mixed dinghy and yacht race days:

Both fleets will have a start sequence of 5 minutes.
Starts will be sequential starting with the yachts first and immediately followed by the dinghies.
- The go signal for the yachts will be the 5 minute signal for the dinghies.
If a general recall is signalled the fleet’s start will be moved to the end of the sequence.
There is a starting time limit of 4 minutes past your starting signal, if you fail to start within this window you will be considered as DNS.

Further Information

If you want to learn more, there is lots of information on the web and elsewhere e.g.
https://www.rya.org.uk/racing/running-racing/race-management-guide