How do we race at Llandegfedd?
Who can race?
Any club member who is confident that they can sail safely around the course and the other boats in the weather conditions on the day. Novice racing helms are encouraged to start by setting off just behind the main racing fleet and following them around the course; this is an excellent way to learn and improve confidence.
How do we enter races?
At most Sailing Clubs there is a paper sign-on sheet to show who intends to race. At Llandegfedd, we have a web-based system that we can access online in the days leading up to the event.
This allows our Race Officers to publish the results speedily and efficiently, and control the numbers on each start line if we have a large event. We share the lake with other users of the Watersports Centre, such as trainees, paddlers, windsurfers and free swimmers and if there is a safety incident on the reservoir, the club is obliged to allow Welsh Water to see which boats were on the water at the time. This is limited to boats and helm names, but not contact details, which are protected within the Sailing Club database.
As a member, you will be able to enter the Members’ pages of the web site and select which races you are joining, identifying your boat by class and sail number, and your crew if you have one. These details are stored in the database to make it easier next time you log on.
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Who supports and runs the racing?
We all do. Each event’s Race Officer is chosen from a roster of experienced racing helms, with less experienced members who assist. Assistants do not need any particular expertise, and this is a good way of learning racing procedures.
Members with an RYA Powerboat 2 certificate share the duties for driving the safety boats, accompanied by safety assistants (who don’t need powerboat experience). They place flags on buoys, record finish positions, and most importantly, help spot capsizes and assist sailors if they are in the water and need help.
Members can volunteer for specific dates and duties or accept allocations from the race team via the Duty Roster, which is published in the Members' pages of the website.
Handicaps
Our members own boats of many different types, suiting a wide range of expertise and exhilaration levels from fast racing dinghies for expert helms, to slower multi-purpose family boats. To allow all these different performance boats to compete together, each boat is allocated a Handicap. The Portsmouth Yardstick Handicap system is the UK national standard way of defining how fast each class of boat is. Performance results from clubs across the UK are continuously monitored and a PY number is issued for every class.
Club races are run in two different ways:
Handicap Races:
In Handicap races, all boats start together, and the times when every boat finishes the set number of laps around the course are recorded. After the race, the race team enter each finish time into the race results spreadsheet, and the software divides the actual time by each boat’s PY handicap to produce a ranked order of how well each helm has performed.
Handicap races start with a countdown sequence allowing all the helms to jockey for positions to cross the start line together. A horn will sound and different lights or flags will be displayed at 5 minutes, 4 minutes, and 1 minute to go and then at race start zero.
Pursuit Races:
In Pursuit Races, the slowest boats start first and the fastest ones start later, determined by their handicap offset start time, allowing them to catch up over the duration of the race (usually either 45 minutes or 1 hour). Theoretically everyone will finish in roughly the same place after this time, with the best performing helms at the front.
Pursuit races have the same countdown to allow helms to set their watches, but they don’t cross the start line until the horn sounds for their allocated handicap start time.
There is no finish line: the race team sound the horn after the set duration of the race and record the order of the procession of boats around the course at this time. It can be difficult for the Race Officer and the Safety Boat crew to record the positions of all the boats in the correct sequence if they are spread out over the whole reservoir: help them by making a note of the boat in front of and behind you.
See the Handicap and Pursuit Offset page for details of each boat class.
The visual signals, and the physical position of the start line, is slightly different for the OD Hut and Committee Boat starts: see the Race Formats page for more details.
When do we run races?
The reservoir is normally open for watersports activities from March until late November, and Sunday racing usually comprises three races, until the days are so short that we can only fit in two. Once the clocks go forward for Summertime, we also sail on Wednesday evenings: typically, this will be April until August for the main series, and then a moveable start time takes us through into October.
Check this year’s Racing Programme page for details.
Our Courses
Around the lake are buoys identified with large numbers or letters. Those with numbers run clockwise around the reservoir, and those with letters run down the middle (some we do not use and may be missing). We select a sequence of these as the marks in a race course by flying flags on them.
The races will either be started from the OD (Officer of the Day) Hut, or Penelope, our Committee Boat, normally anchored towards the Northern end of the lake. Typically, the first Sunday race and the Wednesday races are run from the hut, with Penelope used for Sunday afternoon racing and if there is an unusual wind direction.
Both will display a board showing the order of rounding the marks for each race. This will be a sequence like A, 4, 8, each coloured either Green or Red, indicating for example that the course is to go around buoys A, then 4, then 8. If the mark is Green, you leave the buoy to Starboard (right) and turn clockwise. If the mark is Red, then leave it to Port (left) and turn anticlockwise.
An OD Hut start is taken along a transit across the two masts on the OD hut, which can be swung to lie at right angles to the wind.
If the race is to be run from Penelope, the start/finish line is from the mast at the back of the boat to a “pin buoy” a couple of hundred meters away, also at right angles to the wind. Ask the race team if this is not obvious – they’ll be happy to help!
Go to the Our Courses page for more details and a map of the buoys.
Racing Formalities
Llandegfedd Sailing Club follows the standard International Racing Rules of Sailing, with some small variations. Experienced racing sailors joining us from other clubs will find the details of how we run races and the club’s rule infringement penalties on these pages:
For our members who are less experienced racing helms, all this may be a little daunting. Contact the training team to learn racing rules and procedures by joining in the Adult Race Training sessions which run on selected Saturdays. Our “Meet a Mentor” scheme will also enable you to arrange a little personal coaching with our more experienced members if you want.
