Race Committee

The race committee work on the last two Sundays at our club was.....well let's just say "less than perfect". At the time it made me angry when mistakes were made and racers got confused. Especially because, both weeks, new members of our budding Laser fleet were sailing at the club for the first time. After having spent time encouraging these people to join our fleet it's personally embarrassing when our race committees make us look like a bunch of bumbling idiots.

But I have to assume that the volunteers on race committee are trying their best. And that the solution is to provide everyone in the club with better training on how to be a successful race committee. A great resource to use in such education is this publication from US Sailing - Join the Race Committee Team.

I like the way it emphasizes the need for teamwork; that it explains how everybody in the team should have a clearly defined role that plays to their skills and strengths; and I especially like that there are several scenarios in the book that describe almost second by second what each person in the team should be doing and saying during a typical (successful) starting sequence.

Should be compulsory reading for anyone serving on a race committee.