Racing

Notice of Series for the 2025 CSA Travel Series Championship

Racing is the raison d’etre for the CSA. The CSA Travel Series, and the underlying regattas, are the highlight of the summer. Although not all boats racing in those regattas will join CSA, only registered CSA boats are scored for the CSA Travel Series. But all the boats engage in stiff competition—it feeds the competitive spirit of skippers and crews.

Racing at different clubs improves every sailor’s abilities. It exposes them to different waters and course configurations; it allows them to race their boats against different and stiffer competition; and it results in more time on the water, thus enhancing the skipper’s (and their crew’s) skills. It makes for better sailors.

Some races can be short around-the-marks races, from 2- to 10-miles long, that take between 30 minutes to 2-plus hours. Marks are set in the water a mile or two apart and boats race a predefined course around them. Every club has a set of such marks: some are put in for the day and others are put in for the season. Other races are longer point-to-point races, from 10 to 30 miles—for instance, 26 miles from Rocky River to Mentor. These longer-distance races can take up to 8 hours, depending on wind and lake conditions.

Different types of boats compete in these regattas. Some are designed primarily for racing and some are designed more for cruising. Boats having a longer waterline, lightweight hulls, and greater sail area are inherently faster. Smaller boats, heavier hulls, and smaller sails are inherently slower. To level the playing field, boats are handicapped. The handicap adds or subtracts an amount of time per mile of racecourse based on each boat’s unique design features—size, weight, and sail area being some of the most relevant. Thus, similar boats have similar ratings.

There are also One Design boats. These are sailboats of the same design and rigging that race against each other in what is called the same “class”. Class associations enforce construction standards to keep all the boats as identical as possible.

Information about a particular regatta or series can be found in a Notice of Race/Notice of Series, a document supplied by the race organizers. It will contain detailed information about the race so that skippers can decide whether to compete in the event. The Notice of Race for each club’s regatta can be found on their websites.

There is a body of rules applicable to all organized sailboat racing worldwide known as the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS). All member clubs recognize these rules for their racing events. While quite long and detailed, a summary is available that applies to the start and during racing that covers most situations. A link to the official Racing Rules of Sailing can be found here. CSA’s Racing Guide (with a summary of part 2 of the RRS, “When Boats Meet”) can be found here.