The Marconi British Keelboat team are preparing for their next leg of the competition, that will be held in Cowes during August, by inviting challengers to take them on in match racing during cadet week.
The aim of the event, that will be run on the first Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings of cadet week, is two fold:
- To give club members the opportunity to try keelboat racing, and test themselves against our selected BKL team.
- To give our BKL team the chance to practice boat handling, pre-starts, tactics and rules within a competitive environment.
The event will be sailed in Robbers Ned Kelly and Sundance, and will take place as soon as possible after organised cadet sailing. As high tides will be in the evening, the Race Officers and umpires aim to set the course area just off the hard so that spectators can cheer on the action from the seawall grandstand, with beer in hand.
Each evening there’ll be 5 x 15 minute races and the scores will be totalled throughout the evenings in order to determine a series winner, so come on, lets put our BKL selection team to the test.
Already members have bagged the Sunday evening challengers spot, so if you’d like to participate and help our team to hone their skills ready to represent us in Cowes, then contact Peter Ward, or one of the selection team, to reserve your place in one of the Marconi Allstar Challenger teams.
We’ll update this page with challengers as they are allocated to evening teams, and post information here about timings and sailing instructions.
Sunday 30th July: Challengers – Ian Ivermee, Lydia Coffey, Vy Tran, Jane Allison, Laura Ivermee.
Monday 31st July: Challengers – Dave Onyons and the Monkey Business Team
Tuesday 1st August : Challengers –
Wednesday 2nd August : Challengers –
Update 27th July (Peter Ward)
The Challenge on Sunday 30th July.
This event will start as soon as Ned Kelly returns from her participation in the BJRC race. Expected start time is 6pm. Teams, Race Officers and Umpires should meet in the club bar ready for a briefing at 5pm. Immediately after the teams will be trotted out to the boats and onto the course via rib. Please be kitted up and ready to go.
Throughout the day your shoreside contact will be John Burgoyne. John will be aware of the time Ned Kelly is expected to arrive back at the club and he will be able to inform the teams of any changes expected to these start times.
The Sailing Instructions:
Marconi Match Racing Made Simple (click on the title to download a copy)
Starting Sequence (no flags – VHF and horn)
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Prior to start the Blue flagged boat will be on the port side of the course area and Yellow flagged boat on starboard side.
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At 5 minutes prior to the start, the Warning sound signal, will be made VHF M2 (P4)
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At 4 minutes, the Preparatory sound signal will be made. At the Preparatory Signal, each boat must be outside of the starting area defined by a line perpendicular to the starting line through the starting mark on each boat’s assigned end. After the Preparatory signal, the boats must enter the starting area from the course side of the starting line.
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This is the period where each boats works hard to find a pre-start advantage using the Rules of Sailing to their advantage.
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At 1 minutes prior to start, a sound signal is made.
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At the Starting time, a sound signal is made.
If one or both boats have crossed the starting line to the course side prior to the starting signal, then a Yellow or Blue flag, as appropriate, will be displayed until all boats have started properly.
Protesting
Rules umpires will closely follow the boats. All infractions are settled on the water, there will be no formal protest after the race.
Either Yellow or Blue boat can display a red flag to indicate that the other has infringed the racing Rules.
The on-the-water umpires will display a Yellow or Blue flag, as appropriate to indicate that one of the boats have incurred a penalty. If the umpires determine that no infraction has taken place, they will display a Green & White flag.
For more serious infractions, the umpires can also signal with a Red Flag to indicate a penalty must be taken as soon as possible.
Penalties
If a boat is penalized, she can take the penalty anytime after the start and before the finish. On a beat the penalty is a gybe, on a run the penalty is a tack; all penalties must be completed before crossing the finish line to finish.
The boat cannot perform any part of a penalty within 2 lengths of a rounding mark and the head of her spinnaker must be below the gooseneck when tacking in a penalty.
If a boat is carrying a penalty and gets another, she must perform the 2nd penalty immediately.
The penalty offsetting rule will not apply. If both boats have a penalty against them, then both boats must perform their penalty.
Other Rules
A couple of other rules to Marconi match racing:
Note: You must give the other boat room to keep clear, and time in which they can perform their keep clear move. If you don’t, it will be your boat that receives the penalty.
A Boat cannot go out of her way to interfere with a boat on another leg and cannot protest for action or in-action of the umpires.
Windward marks are rounded, leaving them to port.
Many thanks to the sponsors of our British Keelboat League selection team.