PEEL SAILING AND CRUISING CLUB: CRUISER RACING

Dated – 9 April 2026

1 PSCC CRUISER RACING RULES

1.1 Racing will take place under I.S.A.F. rules and Peel Sailing & Cruising Club rules.

2 CONDITIONS OF ENTRY

2.1 Competitors shall be solely responsible for their own safety and that of other yachts.

2.2 The Club and its members shall not be responsible for any loss, damage, death or any personal injury, however caused, to the competitors or their yachts, as a result of their taking part.

2.3 Competing vessels must carry current third party insurance. It is a condition of entry that by taking part in the race skippers undertake that they are so covered.

3 SCHEDULE OF RACES

3.1 See Appendix 1 for dates of racing, start times, and details of series to be contested.

4 THE COURSE

4.1 The course will be around marks placed off Walpole Road (‘Start/finish’), off Fenella Bay (‘Fenella’), to seaward of the Start mark (‘Offshore’) and off Whitestrand (‘Whitestrand’). Suitable landmarks and navigational reference points for each will be displayed on the Club window notice board.

4.2 The marks will be as described on the Club window notice board. For signal purposes they will be known by their initial letter: Start/finish = ‘S’; Fenella = ‘F’; Offshore = ‘O’; Whitestrand = ‘W’.

4.3 The Start/Finish line will be a transit of Walpole Road, a club flagstaff on the promenade railings and the Start mark. For the avoidance of doubt if the transit is ambiguous, then the start line is between the club flagstaff and the Start mark.

4.4 A green flag flown on the flagstaff will indicate that all marks are to be rounded to starboard (right).

A red flag flown on the flagstaff will indicate that all marks are to be rounded to port (left).

4.5 The course to be sailed will be indicated by boards attached to the railings by the flagstaff. Each board will display one of the letters as described at 4.2. These, read in order from left to right, describe both the number and order in which the marks are to be rounded. Thus: red flag and the letters W-O-F-S would indicate a port course rounding Whitestrand, Offshore, Fenella and Start in that order.

5 THE START

5.1 The start line is described at 4.3

5.2 At 10 minutes before the start a class pennant will be flown from the flagstaff yardarm and a sound signal given. At 5 minutes before the start a ‘Blue Peter’ will be flown from the other yardarm and a sound signal given (no engines permitted after this). At the start a sound signal will be given and the two aforementioned flags lowered.

5.3 If any yacht starts prematurely a sound signal will be given and the ‘Blue Peter’ flown at the dip. Any early yachts must then re-start.

6 THE FINISH

6.1 The finish line is described at 4.3

6.2 A yacht will be finished when it passes over the finish line from the direction of the last mark and an orange flag is flying from the yardarm. A sound signal will be given. If the orange flag is not being shown, the start mark should be treated as a port- or starboard-hand mark (see 4.4) and another lap sailed.

6.3 If the approach to the finish is from the offshore mark, the course flag will at all times prevail in indicating to which side the Finish mark must be left when finishing.

7 PURSUIT RACES

7.1 Based on a yachts handicap number its start is delayed by a calculated time from the scheduled start time.

The race lasts a set time of 90 minutes from the scheduled start time with the winning yacht being the one leading the race at that time.

7.2 The normal PSCC racing rules apply with the exception of starting and finishing, which are

described below:

Pursuit Starting Signals

There will be the usual 10 min, 5 min, start flags and sound signals for the scheduled race start. Prior to race start the race officer will advise each yacht competing of their specific start time over the VHF (race channel 6) based on their pursuit delay time. Two minutes prior to a yachts specific start the race officer will make a ‘2 minute to start’ announcement for that yacht over the radio. At a yacht’s specific start time the race officer will sound the hooter and confirm over the VHF that was the start signal for that yacht.. If a yacht starts early then a whistle will be blown and / or called up on the VHF, after which the yacht must re-start.

Pursuit Finishing Signal

At the end of the 90 minutes a ‘long hoot’ will be given along with an announcement on the VHF. The black and white chequered ‘N’ flag will also be flown.

8 ADVISORY HEARING / PROTESTS

8.1 8.2 When there is an incident that will not result in the lodging of a protest, a boat may, within the protest time limit (2 hours after the end of racing), lodge a request for an advisory hearing with the race officer, and notify any other boat involved in the incident. An advisor will then call a hearing to learn what may have happened and will state whether any rule appears to have been broken, and by which boat. A boat may as a result notify the race officer that she accepts an Exoneration Penalty when it applies to the incident, or choose to retire.

Note – the Exoneration Penalty is defined as a 20% scoring penalty (with a minimum penalty of two places)

Protests should be made in accordance with R.R.S.61 at the Club after racing.

9 SCORING SYSTEMS

9.1 Results shall be calculated in accordance with the RYA YTC handicap system. It is a requirement that a current RYA YTC certificate specific for each yacht racing must be made available to the club race officer prior to the start of a race. The Handicap Sub-committee reserve the right to modify the RYA YTC handicap value for a ‘local’ PSCC value if deemed appropriate / necessary.

9.2 The ‘Low Point’ system will be used: first receives 1 point, second 2 points and so on.

9.3 Racing will be on an ‘average lap’ basis: some yachts may sail more laps than others.

9.4 In each series of three races, two races will count and a yacht will have its worst result discarded. In the event of a series in which two or less races are sailed, all will count.

9.5 The ‘Bilge Cup’ is awarded to the bilge keel yacht with the lowest points from its best five races during the season.

10 INFORMATION

10.1 The course will be set up to allow the best up-wind approach to the start. In westerly winds this will usually be a starboard-hand course.

10.2 Racing will be abandoned if there is, in the opinion of the O.O.D., insufficient wind or excessively rough conditions.

10.3 Three useful flags – a chequered flag means racing is abandoned, a red and white striped pennant means racing is postponed, and a blue and yellow pennant means a general recall to the start.

10.4 VHF channel 6 is the nominated ‘race’ channel.

10.5 Race results and RYA YTC handicaps (including any ‘local’ PSCC modification as per 9.1) will be displayed on the Club notice board.

10.6 Contacts:

Mark Gosden 433376
Ben Mitchell 494088
Rob Floate 480732