Cruisers

Hardway Sailing Club has a very active Cruiser racing fleet featuring several series of club races throughout the year, and we successfully compete in the Inter-Club series with other harbour clubs, having won the trophy for several consecutive years.

Inter-Club races are held in the harbour and in the Solent, over short and long courses, usually with a social gathering at the venue afterwards.We also arrange several cruising rallies at Cowes, Bembridge, Lymington, Yarmouth and Island Harbour on the Medina.

Our unique position overlooking a large part of Portsmouth Harbour is ideal for all kinds of sailing activities, and our active fleet is ever evolving.

Interested in racing?
There are no race fees to pay, as the racing is run by members who volunteer their time.
We use the RYA YTC Handicap system, and a boat rating is easy to obtain from the RYA – details below. You will also be allocated a race number – email raceofficer@hardwaysailingclub.co.uk.
You will need to complete and submit a Race Entry and Risk Statement form (see below) BEFORE competing, and ideally, get a handicap rating at the same time.

News

Hardway Sailing Club Cruiser racing 2024
Your race officers Andy and Rob hope you are all looking forward to an exciting seasons racing in the harbour and out in and around the Solent. In preparation we have organised a pre-season meeting in the club at 1900 on Tuesday 26th of March when we will provide copies of this years courses and harbour chart. In addition Chris Watts will be present to talk about rules and answer any rules related questions.

All skippers will need to complete the 2024 entry form copies of which are on the cruiser racing
notice board and copies will also be available on 26 th March. Last year we switched to the RYA YTC handicap system for Harbour races and the RYA rules advise
that all racing skippers need to apply for a new YTC rating each year. These can be obtained free of charge by applying to the RYA through their web site.

This years Inter-Club series of races are being organised by Portchester Saling club and in addition to entries from Hardway, Fareham and Portchester we are anticipating entries from Portsmouth SC andthe Civil Service Club (Portsmouth Offshore Group). The interclub series includes the following races:
Half Wight 2nd June
Nab Tower 8th June
Interclub Harbour 21st July
Back from Cowes 8th September
Penhallion 21st September
Portchester are also organising the combined harbour regatta on Saturday 6 th July at their club though that does clash with our own Hardway rally to Bembridge that weekend.

We are looking for more support in the Hardway Race box on Wednesday nights, it is fun and entertaining – please email raceofficer@hardwaysailingclub.co.uk to have a chat.

Cruiser Captain Newsletters

Sailing Committee Newsletter No 1

Rally Booking Guidelines

Essential reading if you are involved in organising rallies!

Rally Booking Guidelines Rally Booking

Hardway Cruiser Racing

Overview

Hardway has always provided a variety of cruiser racing including Solent and Harbour racing between club boats and Interclub racing with other local sailing clubs. We hope to continue to provide this service to all members – Please come and join in no matter how skilled or experienced you are, you can compete, hardway will always support you, so you have fun and the right level of challenge for you, and your crew / family. If you are unsure about taking part email Raceofficer@hardwaysailingclub.co.uk and one of us will be please to talk to you and help you get involved.

Handicapping 2024

Cruiser YTC hadicaps 2024 Hardway

During 2023 the club moved to using the most current handicap system, RYA YTC. We took this decision as the existing handicap systems are now not supported and running our own system is not practical. Our experience of using the YTC system has been, overall, positive. Most of the current cruisers racing are competitive with the new handicaps at their experience level, with some minor local adjustments being logical for those who are less experienced or setup for racing. We will bring to the membership for 2024 continued use of the YTC system and also propose allowing some handicap adjustments seperately for the Harbour and solent series based on the previous series results. We are looking for feedback from the membership via email to Raceofficer@hardwaysailingclub.co.uk or at the racing season kick-off meeting in February/March 2024.

Hardway has registered our club on the RYA YTC system, currently most boats racing have registered with the RYA YTC System to get a handicap – this is a free service, if you are considering racing in 2024 we encourage you to apply for a handicap also, details are below for you to follow.

Use this link to register your boat – RYA YTC link using the YTC Home Page, https://ytc.rorcrating.com/

The link takes you to the RYA RTC home page – on the left of the page is a button for club officers to register the club – this has been completed and you will see Hardway Sailing Club in the list of registered clubs at the bottom of the page.

In the middle you will find the button – APPLY HERE – please press this to register your boat and get a handicap.