Saturday 31 October will see the Club run its first ‘novelty’ event for IOMs, other than the monthly handicap series, when we hold a match racing carnival. In this format, boats and skippers will compete head to head with just one other opponent in each race, rather than the full fleet. Winners will receive points for each heat win, while losers will have to wait until the next heat – there will be no prize for second!

The format will be round-robin rather than knockout, so first heat losers will not find themselves sitting on the shore for the rest of the afternoon – everyone will sail off at least once against everyone else in their pool and the idea is that we will complete about eight to ten heats throughout the afternoon.

We have tables already drawn up for the heat schedules but can only finalise them once the number of entries is known – if we have a large enough number of boats involved we will randomly split into two pools and compete within the pools throughout the afternoon, then possibly run a final series between the top two boats from each pool to determine a final Club Match Racing Carnival Winner.

A magazine article on the tactics of match racing is attached for those who wish to get serious about the event and learn a few basic concepts to apply during the afternoon. The main things to remember on the day though are as follows:  The standard rules of racing will apply, together with the standard penalties for breaches. That is, port/starboard, windward/leeward etc. There will be no special match racing rules.

Boats in one match race will still be required to give way to or avoid interfering with boats in another match race or another fleet and perform penalties if they fail to keep clear as required. There will be up to a dozen match races on the water at any one time so the likelihood of crossing paths with boats that you’re not racing against but that are themselves involved in a match race is very real.

Each match race pair will start in a pre-notified sequence, every ten seconds from scratch, using the handicap start tape. It will be up to skippers to know when they are starting and to keep clear of the pairs starting before them.

Each boat will be numbered at the start of the day (Boat No. 1, 2, 3 etc) and it will be up to skippers to remember their number, as it will be used to determine who they are racing against and when. Skippers will also be responsible for ensuring that any points they earn for a win are entered on the score sheet after each heat.

The pools will be established so that there are an odd number of boats in each (if at all possible) so that each pool has a PRO and every skipper acts as PRO during their bye round. PROs will adjudicate if there are unresolved disputes at the end of each heat.

At the end of the day, those with the most points will go forward to a sail-off or to semi-finals and finals if deemed necessary to identify our club match racing champion, and the PRO will be happy to supervise any outstanding grudge matches that skippers propose be settled on the water. Otherwise all arguments will be resolved in the usual way, at beer o’clock!

Bruce Robins