SLOG – Become a Certified Race Officer!

by Steve Harris

So… you want to get more involved in sailing life at BLYC, but you don’t know how to (or don’t want to) sail and race? We have the opportunity for you! Get involved on the Race Committee. This off-season, we will be providing two opportunities for you to learn more and to get involved. Race Committee work can, at times, be a bit hectic (even stressful) but at BLYC, our races are designed to be fun and casual and our Race Committee is very much the same way. Consider joining us…

Race Committee 101

This 2 hour introduction to Race Committee work was developed by US Sailing over the past few years to give RC volunteers an introduction to what we do and why we do it. It’s not a comprehensive training course, but rather intended to help you become more comfortable with what we do and why we do it. We have scheduled this for Sunday, March 3rd. If you’re interested in getting involved – even if you’ve volunteered some in the past – this short introduction will help you to become more involved and join in the FUN! Steve Harris will be our instructor

One-Day Race Management Seminar

This is the US Sailing training course for Club-level certification. For those who want to learn more, dig in deeper, and perhaps eventually earn US Sailing certification, this one-day (~8 hour) course delves deeper into the “whys” in addition to the “hows” of Race Committee work. This course is planned for Saturday, February 9. US Sailing tries each year to have several of these courses in our area (Area E – essentially Lakes Erie & Ontario and inland waters surrounding and to the south). We attempt to hold one that is taught in and focuses more on inland lakes and the unique challenges they represent. This year, BLYC and Hoover Sailing Club will co-host this course at BLYC. Our instructors will be Steve Harris and Jamie Jones.

Jamie is a US Sailing Regional Race Officer and Past Commodore of Hoover Sailing Club with extensive racing and race committee experience. He has been a course PRO at the I-LYA Junior Championships (Junior Bay Week) for several years now in addition to many other high-level events. This past year, he was a course PRO for Chubb US Junior Championships and the PRO for the US Junior Women’s Doublehanded Championships for the Ida Lewis Trophy.

Steve is a Past Commodore of both BLYC and I-LYA. He has been a PRO for Junior Bay every year since 2007 and has been the overall PRO the past 4 years. In addition to many other high-level events, this past season he was again the PRO for the Mills Trophy Race, course PRO for Cleveland Race Week, course PRO for the Chubb US Junior Championships, and PRO for the US Team Racing Championship for the Hinman Trophy. Steve is also a member of the US Sailing Race Officer Training & Certification Subcommittee and is the Area E administrative Race Officer.