Follow Sailing at the Invictus Games on Sunday 21st October

ABC iView will be showing broadcasting the sailing competition from 11 am to 5 pm Sunday 21st October. Ben Fels is the Lead Technical Officer and Chief Umpire for the event and shares some insights as to how the Invictus Games will operate.

The course is in Farm Cove between the Opera House and Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and there are great viewing spots ashore if you are in Sydney.

Each race will be approximately 20 minutes duration with a new race every 30 minutes. It’s a pretty tight race course and definitely meets the criteria for “Stadium” racing.

5 Hansas will be used for the single-handed class and 13 Elliot 7s will be used for the team event. A spare boat will be rigged up sailing all day in Rushcutters Bay – Just in case.

The course will be an LA course (Windward Leeward with a hitch mark the same colour and a gate at the bottom with a downwind finish. The number of laps will depend upon the conditions.

Each boat will have a supplied Boat Captain who will assist with the technicalities of the boats, rigging, launching docking out and getting through the crowded harbour and into the exclusion zone for racing. Once racing, they only act to support seamanship and safety.

The Hansa Class first warning signal is at 11:00 with 3 qualifying races and a Medal race for double points at 12:50.

At 13:30 the Elliot 7 team event will have 13 teams sailing a 3 race qualifying series, with the top 6 teams going through to a winner takes all Medal race at 15:20 – none of the qualifying scores carry forward.

The rules are pretty standard, we are using appendix S so the Supplementary Sailing Instructions (what sailors really need to know) are only 1 page but there is a hiking rule that only two crew can hike over the shearline of the gunwale.

Our umpire team will be in 3 blue Brig RHIBS and our roles are safety and to help the fairness of the competition. We will do this by:

  • Safety issue- stop umpiring and provide safety assistance;
  • being visibly positioned, not many boats foul a rule right in front of an umpire;
  • responding to boat on boat protests and deciding them there and then without a hearing;
  • in limited circumstances, give an umpire-initiated penalty; and
  • holding on the water hearings for anything else if we need to. We can hear evidence and conduct the hearing in any way we consider appropriate.

All penalties will be a one-turn penalty, unless an umpire gives a further penalty.

The Umpire flags have the following meanings

  • Green and white –      “No Penalty”
  • Red –                               “One-turn Penalty”
  • Black –                             “Disqualified from race”

The exclusion zone is reasonably tight. In it will be

  • The Racing boats,
  • Competition vessels: Race Committee, Umpires, Media, First Aid
  • 9 spectator vessels from RPAYC, CYCA and RYSYS
  • An Official vessel with dignitaries….
  • Team Support RHIBS
  • Police and MSB vessels
  • Maybe a warship…

As the Sailing Competition Manager, Tom Spithill has the complete assistance of the Police to manage entry into the exclusion zone and positioning of any vessels in the exclusion zone, so we don’t expect it to be too hard to get the positioning right.

Roger Badham (AKA Clouds) is doing a daily event weather analysis for us and we are expecting a South – South Easterly swinging around to an East – South Easterly in the afternoon.  But the weather models keep evolving as the current observations get fed into the predictions in the models. If we get the swing to the East, the course axis up to the Opera House is going to set us up for some really tight racing: Game on!

The Invictus Games are set up to support the athletes and their families so that’s why we have so many spectator vessels in the exclusion zone. Also HRH Prince Harry will be attending the sailing, probably with some other pretty notable dignitaries, so there needs to be some control of supporters, spectators and fans.

One really rewarding aspect of preparing for the games has been training some Veterans as umpires. Last week we had some intensive training in Sydney with our new Veteran umpires during the Australian Match Racing Championships at CYCA and we’re thrilled with the progress. We are also conducting the Australian Sailing Powerboat Handling Course for one of the them and will complete it on Saturday on Sydney Harbour.

It’s going to be a great event, Nic Douglas (Adventures of a sailor girl) will be an expert commentator for ABC. Nic is really knowledgeable, explains the game and brims with excitement. Here’s her coverage of the Final race in the Australian Youth Match Racing Championships in Sydney last week. https://www.facebook.com/sailorgirlHQ/videos/859166264285879/