What do you mean we’re race committee???

Tonight, as I got to the marina, I found out that the crew from my boat was going to be race committee for the night’s race.  It was a great night — about 85 degrees and sunny with a nice breeze.  But now, it’s confession time . . . I still get a bit confused with everything that happens at the beginning of a race.  I’m OK with the race starting sequence once I start to hear the countdown and horns from classes that start before my boat.  However, I’m not great at recognizing the flags without the radio calls or “cheat sheet” that is mounted in the cockpit of one of the boats that I race on.

 

So, tonight was a great learning experience.  My job was mainly to jot down the numbers of all the boats checking in at the beginning of the night; and capture their times at the end of the race.  I left the horns and signal flags to crew members with more experience than me.

 

Anyhow, this experience made me want to brush up on race rules, starting sequence, and flags.  Here is what I came up with:

  • If you want to reference the official starting sequence, you can find it in The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2009 – 2012.  It’s in Part 3 — Conduct of a Race (page 11).
  • If you don’t have that book as a reference, check out Wikipedia.  They actually had more information there than I expected.

Alternatively, here’s my summary from reviewing The Racing Rules of Sailing for 2009 – 2012.  This flag reference should help:

 

 

 

5 minutes before start Warning signal is posted with class flag (from sailing instructions). One sound is shared.
4 minutes before start Preparatory signal is posted.  It’s usually the P flag (blue background with a white square in the center).  One sound is shared.
1 minute before start Preparatory signal is lowered.  One long sounds is shared.
Start Warning signal is lowered. One sound is shared.

 

PLEASE NOTE: (This one surprised me) Race starting times are to be taken from visual signals.   If there is not a sound signal, the visual flags still count.  For example, don’t count on hearing horn blasts or courtesy radio broadcasts.

 

If a boat is early over the starting line, the X flag (white with a blue + on it) will be displayed with a sound signal.  If the race committee can’t figure out which boat is over early; they can use the “first substitute’ (blue triangle with smaller yellow triangle inside) flag with two sound signals.