The Sailing Committee, supported by our staff, have been busy over winter and have completed the sailing calendar for the new season with a few enhancements by reviewing what we did last season and looking at what works well at other clubs.
The Couta Boat Sailing Instructions have been revised and there will now be separate ones for Couta Boats and Dinghies, though they will share a common Course Sheet which has been tweaked slightly. The Couta Boat NOR / SIs are now down to one double sided A4 sheet.
We experienced many occasions when the weather was good for part of the day but unsuitable later on. We’ve added more days with back to back races for Couta boats, starting at 1200hrs, to give us a bigger sailing window.
The Mercedes-Benz Mornington CBA Nationals have been reduced to 2 days with a provision for resail scheduled if it is needed. Similarly, the States will be at home in Sorrento over two days of the March long weekend.
Twilight races have been brought forward to 1600hrs and will be run as pursuit races every Friday during January. The earlier start is expected to better accommodate the social side of summer, either dinner at the Club or getting back home for a meal with extended family and friends.
Last season our new fixed mark courses produced some great racing so when we aren’t doing aggregates, we’ll have more of these using the pursuit race format to take a bit of the edge off starting. We don’t want to do this all the time, but we are keen to see how the new mix works.
Our signature Couta Boat events such as the GANT Portsea Cup, Three Piers and the Sorrento Cup all have scheduled resails and the Lacco Cup has fewer racing days but has a resail provision in case it is needed.
Dinghy racing times have been standardised to 1300hrs starts as this seems to suit families much better. During the school term, racing is always on a Sunday (except for Opening Day).
The Dinghy Sailing Instructions are nearly ready. They are having quite a makeover by carving out all the Couta boat instructions, so we will end up with simple instructions that are readily understood by those that read them. It’s a good habit for our developing sailors to read Sailing Instructions and learn how to apply them.
The Sailing Committee has also thoroughly reviewed our other aspects of sailing with fine tunes and tweaks to our Race Management Policies, Handicap Parameters, Safety procedures and requirements.
We will explain these enhancements over the coming weeks and will also be holding an Information session in town before the season gets underway on the 18th of October at 7pm. More details to follow.
In the meantime, the calendar has all of our sailing events loaded, which you can sync to your smart phone.
Scott Llewelyn – Club Captain
Adam Hawkins – Sailing Operations Manager
Ben Fels – WHS and Sailing Administration
