Sail1Design Editor

Have a smartphone? Now you can get the ISAF Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) on your Android or your iPhone – YOU-TACK!Pro, The Racing Sailor’s Illustrated Guide. You get: The Rules with Illustrations and Comments; 42 quizzes with 3D animations and a Scoreboard to track your answers; all the Signals and the International Flags; plus the ISAF Definition of Terms.

The Android version has a Search Tool, and a set of Sailing Terms (besides the Offical ISAF Definitions) – both will soon follow on the iPhone version.

If you have a smartphone and you race – you want YOU-TACK!

The complete App is $19.99, and worth every penny! You can find YOU-TACK! in the App Store and the Android Market, or at www.you-tack.com 

J24 Fleet Going Techie, By Airwaves Editor Jen Vandemoer Mitchell

The J24 East Coast Championship, which will be held in Annapolis, MD October 28-30, is going to be a modern event thanks to Mark Hillman, his company Hillman Capital Management and other supporting sponsors. Hillman has been competing for many years in the J24 class (placing in the top of the fleet many times at the ECC’s) and has been a sponsor for the J24 ECC since 2002.  Hillman thought it was time to re-vamp the event and take it into the direction that sailing events are moving in which is using technology to reach out to people everywhere, to allow viewers to watch and get a feel for sailing like you can any other broadcast sport. Some new elements the regatta will include are: on the water commentary, live video feed from boats, on-the-water coaching, and real time scores. Because it is not a qualifying event, they can play with it and try new things out. This will help show one-design sailing how integral it is to the sustainability of the classes to stay current with technology and attract interest to the sport.

Hillman started sailing when he was ten years old at summer camp. When he was fourteen he and his brother taught their parents how to sail and they fell in love with it.  They were hooked and soon the whole family got into racing. Later, when Hillman was racing on the Chesapeake Bay in a Ranger 22, he noticed a boat he had never seen before set up below him on the starting line and in his slot, it took off the line and sailed over the horizon, “so that was interesting,” Hillman says. From there he started crewing on the J24 and he says it has been the thread that has woven throughout his sailing career, “I never go more than two or three years away from the class without coming back.”

Hillman’s love of the J24 fleet and what it has taught him is partly responsible for why he has chosen to vamp up the J24 ECC; “I feel like I don’t do enough for the sport, I am always a beneficiary of someone else’s hard work. A lot of people do race committee or plan events, I hardly ever do that stuff, and so it’s a way for me to actually give back because the class has done so much for me over the years, through my development it has helped me learn responsibility, perseverance, fair play and all those important traits.”  Being a bigger presence at the event also helps build his company brand, Hillman Capital Management, “the sailing community is a natural community to share capital management business with,” Hillman states.

Hillman’s talented IT staff from his company built the J24 ECC website and will be responsible for running the on board video cameras, online registration (coming soon) and all the real time updates.  Hillman has also been using social media to advertise the regatta on Twitter and Facebook, this caught the interest of a sailor in Japan who sent him a message excited to come sail in the event. The regatta has reached people on the other side of the world who will be tuning in to follow the racing online. Finding funding and good sponsorship has helped Hillman bring technology and resources to this event, and hopefully with its success other classes will follow suit.

By adding new elements to the regatta, Hillman is also interested in building a better profile for the J24 fleet to continue to grow the class. Providing on the water coaching will be very helpful for sailors who are still working on making it to the top of the fleet, and who may otherwise be discouraged from continuing to compete without improvement.  There has been a decrease in the fleet over the last few years and Hillman would like to position the J24 class so that as the economy gradually comes back and sailors return to the water; they come to the J24 fleet.

The J24 ECC has been around since 1978, which makes it one of the longest running events.  “It is a great tradition and Annapolis in the fall is the perfect place to host it,” Hillman proudly states. An event steeped in history, Hillman is also compiling a history of the event and is still looking for contributions if anyone has articles, written memories or photos, they want to share they can be submitted to the event website.  Available to view for free on the website are videos from the 2004 and 2005 ECC, provided by Tucker Thompson at T2P TV. “You will see from the history, we are the best of the best in our sport.” Speaking of the best, Hillman will also help arrange housing for anyone who needs a place to stay for the regatta.  It can be expensive to house a whole team, and this is not a reason that Hillman will accept for people to not attend the event.

Hillman is brining the J24 ECC into the 21^st century with the addition of technology and resources for the sailors to continue to develop the class; he wants this to be a great experience for the sailors. There will be a lot of new parts at the regatta and “it will probably not be perfect in its first year, however it will be over time, and it will continue to be a great fall event,” explains Hillman. We are hoping it all goes well and it is a direction that one-design sailing will continue to move in.  Visit the J24 ECC website to learn more and follow the event in October.

About the J/24:

The J/24 is one of, if not the most successful keelboat one-design sailing classes of all time. These great boats are still being produced. For more information check out the J-Boats Website:

http://www.jboats.com/j24/

Regatta Website:

http://j24eastcoastchampionship.com/

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

http://www.chicagomatchrace.com/