Sign on/off

Hi Rick,

Sorry I’m a bit late coming to this, I assume you’re talking about WYC. I agree that making people sign off within 30 minutes seems to be a way of getting them off the water, not the best way to encourage people to improve their sailing skills. I could see a safety justification for signing on and off but if the only consequence of not signing off is to be DSQ’d then that argument goes out of the window, anyway if one is signing on/off for safety reasons then there should be a similar provision for non racers who don’t have the benefit of rescue boats and/or a fleet of boats around them.

Most other clubs I’ve sailed at have a system where you sign on to say you are going to race. If you wish to retire you either contact the ROD, getting a rescue boat to radio in (or see him in the bar afterwards), or you write RTD (or DNS) on the signing in sheet, you don’t need to sign to say you have completed the race correctly as if you haven’t retired then that is taken as read. You could put a time limit on retirements, if you retire after 30 minutes you won’t even be classed as a starter but race results aren’t produced by hand these days so even if the ROD has done the results taking one finisher out and shuffling every one else up a place isn’t a hardship and doesn’t even need to be done on the day.

Having been DSQ’d at Whitstable a few times in the past because I was enjoying my sailing I had a look at the 2006 club rules and could only find rule 2.1 which is a requirement to sign on–  

2.1 …… Entrants shall complete the Declaration (signing on) sheet at the WYC course board on the veranda railing before going afloat to race.

So any 30 minute time limit must be a later amendment which I would hope will make it easier to change.

At Carsington we only sign off.  But there's no time limit short of the club closing..

Means you can decide to race or not once you're out on the water.  The sign on is passing the start line.

Many's the time when I've been out for a blast, inadvertenly passed the finish line and gotten a hoot for finishing .... presume they later notice I never passed the start line!

Seems to work tho.  Guess our race officers are harder worked than most .... more reason for sticking to safety boat duties!

If action is taken when someone dosn't sign off then it serves a purpose. Sounds like your system worked even though it was a false alarm.

If all that happens is you get DSQ and everyone goes home seems a bit pointless.

regards,

Rick