This guide aims to assist sailors with racing in a safe environment and reduce the risks of Covid-19. It is structured in a format to try and follow a typical day’s racing and details any changes to a normal racing day.
- Before coming to the Club. Please before you come to the club, please ensure you are dressed for sailing and that you have all your equipment with you. The clubhouse continues to be out of bounds, including the changing rooms. If you are at the club during lunch, please remember your lunch and its advisable to have a snack and drink for mid-afternoon.
Races will start no earlier than 11:15, 13:15 and 14:30.
Please ensure you’ve got your EA river licence before sailing.
Please read the guide for informal sailing for information about using the club grounds to stay safe.
Please read the club’s risk assessment so you are aware of any Covid-related risks and how to mitigate them. - On arriving at the Club. Please arrive at the club at least 30 minutes before your first race.
Please sign yourself and anyone accompanying you into the club visitor book which is being used for Test and Trace. The book should be located in the porch to the clubhouse, but if its not, ask the Officer of the Day.
If there are more than six people at the club, please discuss amongst yourselves whilst socially distanced about grouping into multiple groups of six. You can interact with your group of six during the day whilst remaining socially distanced (unless you are from the same household), but must not interact or mix with other groups.
Before the first race of the day, the Officer of the Day will give a briefing. This will take place 10-15 minutes before the 10 minute signal, so please be present for this if you are racing in the first race. If you arrive in the afternoon, please seek out the OD and ask them about the day’s racing format. - Multi-crew Dinghies. You are only allowed to sail multi-crewed boats such as Enterprise, Merlin and GP14 if you deem it appropriate to sail with somebody from another household. The RYA has published some useful guidance about this. Please consider that you and your crew must be able to be able to put your boat in and out of the water unassisted due to social distancing.
- Club Boats. If you plan to sail a club boat, please disinfect the boat before and after use.
- Launching your boat. Please be sure to be socially-distanced when launching, check the jetty launch area is clear of other boats and you have somewhere to tie up your boat once launched. There must be a maximum of six boats on the jetty at a time, so there if there is currently six, ask the other sailors politely if anyone is leaving the jetty soon so you can launch. Please be considerate of passers-by when launching. Once you have launched, please sail from the jetty once your boat is ready so that others can launch.
- Race start. The OD will have detailed how the race starts are structured and potentially different from normal. Race courses are shorter than normal to ensure the entire course can be seen from OD box.
- Capsizes and rescues. If you capsize your boat, stay with your boat and, if possible, try and right your boat unassisted. If you need help, please indicate this to the OD box. The safety boat will come to your assistance, and if possible advise how to right the boat. You can ask the safety boat to help get your boat upright if you wish – they can lift the mast out of the water to take the weight out of the capsized sail. If you wish, they can also steady the boat whilst you attempt to get back in. If you are too tired to right the boat or get back in, please indicate to the safety boat and discuss whether you want to get into the safety boat or would prefer to swim to shore. Check the shore before doing so to ensure you can get out of the river. The crew will assist you into the safety boat and take you and your boat back to the jetty.
- Race finishes. There will be full breaks between each race (lunch, tea break). At the end of the race, check that there are no more than six sailors at the jetty and if its safe, return to the jetty. If other sailors have finished and not returned to the jetty and there are sailors on the jetty already discuss with them about who is next to dock. You should consider sailing ability and tiredness of your fellow sailors. If there are around 6-8 boats, then it’s feasible to tie up your boat between races, move your boat and tie it up so there is space for other sailors to come into the jetty. If not, please take the boat out of the water and put it in the boat park whilst socially distanced. Once you have tied up your boat or removed it, please clear the jetty area to allow other sailors on to the jetty.