This article is intended to provide a guide for those members who own a Fast Handicap Fleet dinghy and are tempted to try their hand at a race. The Fast Handicap Fleet consists of dinghies such as Laser 2000, RS200, RS400, RS Vision, RS Vareo, Topper Xenon, 420, 470, Phantom in fact any dinghy with a PY No. less than 1091 excluding the other dedicated Fleets at Bewl.
Dinghy racing is a superb way to build on your sailing skills and make friends at the Club. Many find the word RACING a little off-putting. This is a shame and I urge you to give it a try at Bewl Water. Those who race are both friendly and helpful and do not take it too seriously – they often wave to me as they stream past my capsized dinghy! More seriously it is regarded as an excellent mornings exercise requiring considerable skill and brain work to handle the variety of wind conditions and the outcome of the race is of secondary importance. Assuming you are willing to give it a go the following provides some information that you will find useful. Note that although the racing at Bewl is organised as a Series of races you are very welcome to attend just one or more as and when your free time permits.
Racing starts around 10:40 on most Sunday mornings. You do not need permission to join in or even tell anyone. Simply turn up in time to rig your dinghy and be on the water by 10:30.
Before you launch look at the noticeboard at the east end of the clubhouse. At about 10:00 hrs you will find a race-list pinned to the board with a pencil handy. Enter your name and the sail number of your dinghy.
The course - Most Race Officers are helpful and put details of the Fast Handicap Fleet course on the whiteboard by 10:15hrs. Remember the buoy letters and use the Bewl Water map, sited below the whiteboard, to identify where they are. If you are like me, ask someone to point the buoys out to you.
The list of buoys will look something like this Ws, Cs, Mp, Hs, Racebox start – X
Let me translate; The Race Officials will be in the Race Box and the Start/Finish Line is between the Racebox and buoy X. After the start head for buoy W and pass it on your starboard side(Ws). Then head for buoy C also pass it on your starboard side(Cs). Then head for buoy M but this should be passed on your port side(Mp), head for buoy H passed to starboard (Hs) and then on the home run to the finish line. Often the Race Officer is sited in the Orkney – a fishing launch that passes as a committee boat. The course is usually displayed both on the whiteboard (this is helpful as people can ask around to clarify any points) and also on the rear display board of the Orkney or the display board on the front of the Racebox.
The Start - The Club uses the 3,1 Go start system. In practice this means that the hooter sounds 3 minutes before the start. Set or note your watch time by this hooter. One minute before the Start the hooter sounds again. This signal enables you to synchronise/correct your watch. Finally the hooter sounds to indicate the race has started. Ideally your boat should be underway and crossing the line as the hooter sounds. This is much easier said than done and most boats cross the line a little behind the Start signal rather than risk going over the line and being recalled. Dave Radford runs a useful and inexpensive Club course called ‘Start racing’ that gives tips and practice on controlling a dinghy at the start of a race that I found very helpful. Even if you do not race it is a fun and useful course.
The Race - Once underway the skill is to choose a course that takes you most speedily to the next buoy. This is where the real skill and brains of helmsmanship counts. Reading the wind conditions, understanding your dinghy and its limits, neat accurate tacking all play their part in travelling around the course at the best speed. As with all skills there is no substitute for practice but you will discover that a reasonably decent performance on your part will result in a decent position because, despite its critics, the PY handicap system will force the faster dinghies to put in a very decent performance in order to win. Don’t be disappointed if many other boats cross the finish line well ahead of you – often they need a very good lead to overcome their handicap and the challenge for those dinghies is to build that lead over the duration of the race. Simply being in front is not good enough. This is the reason why handicap racing has much to offer all who take part.
One last point – when does the race finish? The Race Officer usually aims for the length of a single race to last around 45mins. In decent winds a race may consist of 3 laps, in less windy conditions the Race Officer may set a shorter course or run only 2 laps. As you finish the race your dinghy will receive a hoot as you cross the line.
After the end of the first race the Race Officer will start the next race as soon as all dinghies in the first race have crossed the line. Once again the 3, 1, Go sequence will sound. There are only two races on a summer Sunday morning. Race results are usually published on the Club website on Tues evening following the race.
The Rules - What about the rules of racing? They are sensible but sometimes rather technical. You do not need to know the rules to start racing – simply avoid collisions with other dinghies. The best advice is to pick up the rules as you do more racing, in the meantime give way to other boats. The most basic rule, equivalent to driving on the left in our roads, is that a boat on Starboard tack (ie when you are sitting on the right hand side of your dinghy) has the right-of-way but do not rely upon that, keep a good look out and avoid any possibility of a contact.
Flags are used in addition to the hooter but as the purpose of this article is to get you started I will leave flag explanations to a later article.
Contact me on [email protected] if you have any queries about racing.
David Brewer
Fast Handicap Fleet Captain
