By Airwaves Editor Jen Vandemoer Mitchell
Match racing, called the fastest growing discipline in sailing, has many people captivated and a lot of people still trying to understand it. Most are familiar with match racing due to the renowned America’s Cup, which had its first challenge race in 1870. Match racing is a one-on-one duel between equally matched boats that challenges tactics, strategy, and boat handling. Understanding match racing starts with the rulebook in Appendix C, where the rules of hunting are modified and right-of-way appears to become even more integral in the game. Although match racing has been around for quite some time, it seems that it did not become mainstream in the United States until Women’s Match Racing was added as a division in the 2012 Olympics. Here is a basic look at the game of match racing. This is meant to be a basic overview a teaser so that you can learn more for yourself and start to get involved.
Match Races start with two one-design (usually) boats that are equally matched. One boat displays a yellow flag and the other a blue flag. In the start the two boats are not allowed to engage with each other until 4 minutes to the start. The blue boat waits at the pin and the yellow at the boat. Once the sequence is within 4 minutes the boats engage in an exciting pre-start battle. Of course the goals are for someone to start prematurely, draw out a foul or have a clean start ahead of the other boat. The races are approximately 20 minutes in length and are sailed on a Windward-Leeward twice around course with marks to starboard and a downwind finish. The races are umpired by two sets of umpires, each assigned a boat to look after. The umpires make on the course penalty decisions that help to eliminate off the water protests and keep the racing fun and exciting. One unique aspect of the penalty system is that if a boat is marked with a penalty they can take their penalty at any time during the race before the finish line. This way if the other boat incurs a penalty, the penalties cancel each other out and neither boat needs to spin. However, if a boat accumulates three penalties in a race they are disqualified. This is a very brief look at what match racing entails.
Match racing events are graded 1-5 and the grading defines the level of the competitors in the event in addition to other aspects of how the event is run and who is umpiring it. For example Grade 1 is the highest caliber event, it is an international event and requires that the majority of the skippers participating have a world ranking in the top 10. At the other end of the scale is a Grade 5 event, which is a local match race regatta that meets the match racing standards, but does not require a certain caliber sailor or a certain number of participants. ISAF maintains the list of rankings for match racing competitors and this determines what grade events a sailor can compete in. It sounds a bit complicated, but the more exposure you get in the discipline the more sense it makes.
There are great resources available to learn about match racing aside from studying the call book. North U with Dave Perry has put together a very informative DVD called, Welcome to Match Racing. The US Sailing website has great information as well as the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) website. Youth clinics and regattas are all over the nation this summer, a calendar of these events can be found on the US Sailing website. Match racing also made its debut in college sailing this past fall at the ICSA Match Racing National Championship. Many viewers were able to catch the action online via webcast supported by the Chicago Match Race Center.
Match racing venues and facilities are starting to crop up across the nation and near by in Canada. One of the first facilities in the nation that has made many match races possible is the Chicago Match Race Center (CMRC). Co-founders and elite sailors, Don Wilson and Bill Hardesty have developed a top-notch match race training facility for professional and amateur sailors. They hosted their first event in June of 2009. Tod Reynolds, the Program Director for the CMRC, explains that they “took the best aspects of the match race centers in the world and brought it to Chicago.” They host world-class regattas in the summer and have weekly training programs. The facility has ten Tom 28s, four Elliott 6ms, motorboats (for tending to practices and races) and a seventy-five foot houseboat (that acts as their headquarters in the summer, a banquet place and a VIP spectator boat during events).
The facility is not a learn-to-sail center, but a place where racers go to take their racing to the next level. “It is a great facility to bridge the gap between college and all other kinds of sailing,” Tod says. CMRC makes themselves accessible for youth sailors by providing a discount for sailors under the age of twenty-five. “A team of four sailors under twenty-five could join and sail for a summer for $1000,” Tod explained, “We really want young sailors to get involved.” As is safest with larger boats the youngest a sailor can be at the CMRC is sixteen. Anyone can be a member at the facility and some perks that membership includes are twice-a-week practices, targeted skill practices, and the use of the boats when they are available. The CMRC has teams come in from all over the world to practice for a week and take advantage of the great facility.
CMRC has a great staff including new sailing manager, ICSA Match Race Champion, Taylor Canfield, a group of elite (Bill Hardesty, Steve Hunt, to name a few) part-time coaches, and new this summer will be six interns who range from college sailors to just out of college sailors. The interns will help with running the facility, but will also get a lot of opportunities to get on the water and sail themselves. “We will be experimenting a lot this summer, we will work on how to get more people involved and give match racing a try”, Tod is spearheading new developments at the facility and is very excited for their summer line-up. CMRC will be hosting the most match race events in the U.S. and they are thrilled to host their first Grade 1 event in late September. They are very proud of their ability to run high-caliber events and
will certainly keep honing their skills in the future. Tod explained another goal for CMRC will be to get their staff involved in umpiring, “there are some great match race certified umpires out there, but the number of graded events in the U.S. has doubled this year from thirty events to sixty-three. With this growth more umpires will be needed.”
Now it is time to get out there and start match racing. Find a clinic, get reading and reach out to sailors at your local yacht clubs. If this is not encouragement enough, take a look at the video clip below showing footage from the Miami Open Elliott 6m Match Race that CMRC and Sail Sheboygan co-hosted in February.
Chicago Match Race Center
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