With the World Sailing Annual Conference being held in October 2022, we asked 3 of our Australian delegates to share with Australian Race Officials an insight into to what their committee will be looking at.

Below we hear from David Brookes, Richard Slater and Barry Johnson.

David Brookes – World Sailing Race Officials Committee
The World Sailing Race Management Sub Committee produces two documents to assist race officers. The Race Management Manual and Race Management Policies.

The World Sailing Race Management Manual is a large document to help race management in determining how to run races in a variety of conditions and with different types of classes. It will assist in preplanning right through to do at the end of a regatta. The document explains how to run races in fleet, kites, offshore para, match racing etc all to assist even the most experienced race officer in running a better race or regatta.  

The World Sailing Race Management Policies document for the Olympic Games and World Sailing Events document and policies apply to Olympic and World Sailing events, many of the policies can be applied at the club level and above sailing events. When to raise and lower the orange flag, using GPS time, course configuration and general practices can all be transferred across too many of our sailing races. The document gives guidance to the race officer and consistency to the sailors.  All the policies are not meant to be used for every sailing event. Though if you read through and find those you can apply standard policies to your events this assists your race officials to run more consistent races. Enjoy your race management. 

Richard Slater – World Sailing Racing Rules Committee
The Racing Rules Committee is currently preparing for the upcoming annual meeting held in Abu Dhabi in October. This will be an important meeting as it is the first time the committee can meet face to face since the new four year cycle of the committee started. While zoom and phone calls are useful, it is often much more beneficial to be able to sit together and have an in-depth discussion regarding the racing rules and any proposed changes. The committee normally has to manage a high number of submissions, many trying to fix the same rule. It is therefore important to spend time to prepare and discuss the submissions prior to the meeting as there is only a short amount of time to formally consider each submission. 2023 is the year where the committee have to have made all but the most urgent of changes for the 2025-2028 Racing Rules of Sailing so having the committee working efficiently together over the next 12 months is important.

The sport of sailing is becoming more diverse. We need to have a broad set of rules to allow the diverse range of boats and boards to be raced. This has meant that the racing rules committee has to be able to develop new rules while still constantly improving the existing rules. The result has been a number of development rules being published to manage such areas of high speed racing, umpired fleet racing and even the new foiling wings.

Barry Johnson – World Sailing Equipment Rules Sub Committee
The World Sailing (WS) Equipment Rules Sub Committee (ERSC) is a subcommittee of the WS Equipment Committee (EQC). This ERSC is a composition of considered experts in all technical matter relating to yacht racing, those being Class Rules approvals, Equipment Rules of Sailing (ERS), Standard Class Rules and various other technical matters. It is the responsibility of the ERSC to make recommendations to the EQC for their consideration and approval. Class Rules are long process and as such 3 Working Parties have been established to accelerate class rule submission as submitted by the WS Classes. In total there are approx. 125 World Sailing Classes, and all require the same amount of class rule scrutiny.

The 3 Working Parties are

There are 2 formats of Class Rules.

1.    Closed Class Rules : “Class Rules where anything NOT specified by the class rules is prohibited”
2.    Open Class Rules: “Class Rules where anything NOT specifically prohibited by the class rules is permitted”

The ERSC are also working on Guides to Measurement, Event Equipment Controls and Regulations, Standard Class Rule templates. Although the ERSC members are all volunteers each member would spend at least 3 to 4 hours minimum per week ensuring the sport is served with the correct rules and regulations to meet our chosen sport’s needs.

Should any class or sailor wish to seek more information on Class Rules etc Barry is easily contacted on batric@aussiebroadband.com.au.