Gulf Yachting Association

Race Management Committee

Michael Hage (Chairman)
PO Box 6265
Gulfport, MS  39506-6265
228-896-4096 (res)
228-897-9100 (bus)
228-897-9199 (fax)

Chip MacMillan
1441 Players Club Cir.
Gulf Breeze, FL 32563
850-934-5377 (res)
850-202-0170 (bus)

Bud Thurman
124 South Booker
Little Rock, AR 72205
501-666-7486 (res)
501-682-8430 (bus)
501-682-6171 (fax)

Jim Tichenor
3827 Del Monte Drive
Houston, TX 77019
713-439-1232 (res)

Randy Fitz-Wainwright
14237 County Road 3
Fairhope, AL  36532
251-377-8419

John Morrow

PO Box 1446

Panama City, FL 32404

850-769-3943 home

850-872-1242 business

850-872-1243 fax

850-832-0052 cell

ASSOCIATE MEMBERS

The GYA Race Management Committee is chartered under Article VII, Section 7 of the GYA Bylaws.  The duties of this committee are to "promote excellence in race management within the GYA, administer the competition for the GYA trophy for excellence in race management, investigate reports of improper race management as set forth in the Regulations for Sanctioned Events (available at www.GYA.org), and provide assistance and advice on race administration."

GYA Race Management Award.  This trophy is awarded each year, at the Annual Awards Banquet, to the GYA member club exhibiting the most outstanding race management at an event during the previous year.  Recent events that have won the award for excellence in race management include:

• 2012 - SYC, Junior Liptons, James Sanchez, Jr.
• 2011 - GYC, GYA Challenge Cup, John B. Morrow PRO
• 2010 - SYC, Flying Scot Mid-Winters, George Hero PRO
• 2009 - GYC, Challenge Cup, John Morrow PRO
• 2008 - St. ABYC, Candler Regatta, Clinton Edwards PRO
• 2007 - PYC, WFORC, Chip MacMillan/Bernie Knight PROs
• 2006 - PYC, GYA Challenge Cup, Bill Brundige PRO
• 2005 - GYC, GYA Challenge Cup, Bobby Bailey PRO
• 2004 - St. ABYC, FS Mid-Winters, John Morrow PRO
• 2003 - No Award
• 2002 - No Award
• 2001 - PCYC, Lipton Regatta, Gene Walet PRO
• 2000 - BYC, Jr. Lipton Regatta, Tom Batty PRO
• 1999 - GYC, FS NA Championship, Robert J. Bailey PRO
• 1998 - PontYC

All GYA clubs are encouraged to submit regattas run at their clubs for consideration for this prestigious award.  The Administrative Requirements and further information about this competition are available for download, as is the Optional Skipper's Ballot. While it is certainly a great honor for a club to win this award, all clubs who enter generally find that they "win" just by entering.  First, the fact that race committee members know that they are entering the competition tends to bring out the best effort in all involved with the event. Secondly, the ballots that the skippers submit are a great source of information that the club can use to improve their performance in future regattas.

Standardizing Sailing Instructions.  Recently the race management committee finished revising the sailing instructions that are used for the GYA Lipton Regatta.  This revision incorporates both changes requested by  previous year's Lipton race committee as well as changes resulting from the update to the Racing Rules of Sailing.  The updated Lipton Standard Sailing Instructions are available here in  MSWORD  or HTML format.  Race committees are encouraged to use these sailing instructions as a basis for writing sailing instructions for their own  events, especially Capdevielle regattas.  

The International Sailing Federation has published a "generic" template for use as a starting point when developing sailing instructions.  This document is available here in either HTML or MSWORD format. 

They have also published template for preparing a Notice of Race, available in MSWORD format.

Information Dissemination.  The RMC has developed an introductory seminar to acquaint prospective personnel with information about race management practices as well as providing refresher material for those that are currently active.  The seminar is available here for download:

GYAIntroRM.ppt (572KB) The seminar in MS PowerPoint format.
GYAIntroRM-slides.pdf (677KB) The slides for the seminar in Adobe Portable Document Format.
GYAIntroRM-notes.ppt (980KB) The notes pages for the seminar in MS PowerPoint Format.

We hope that any interested club will use this material to train it's own members.

In 1999 US Sailing implemented a certified race officer program to replace the currently recognized Senior Race Officer and Club Race Officer designations.  The new program will certify race officers at three levels:

·        Certified Club Race Officer

·        Certified Regional Race Officer, and

·        Certified National Race Officer.

Click here for more information about the race officer certification program.

Constructive comments and suggestions are always welcome!   Let us know how we can help improve the quality of racing within the Gulf Yachting Association.