Registration
under the Small Ships Register (SSR) Part III
This was easy to fulfill. After calling the Registry of Shipping &
Seamen in Cardiff, a simple two page form was received by post the
following day. Requiring only the most basic details of the boat to be
registered, and the form in plain English, it was returned immediately
with the £10.00 fee. At the time of application, the process takes about
ten days until the SSR number is issued. Curiously, no proof of ownership
was required.
Application for official
sail numbers
If a yacht is racing, she needs an RYA approved sail number. For the
normal cruising yacht, a recognizable sail number aids in identification
both in distress situations and also in case of theft.
This was also remarkably easy. You may elect to pay the Offshore
Racing Council £18.00 for the numbers which they will issue along with
your certificate, or you may join the Royal yachting Association (RYA) for
the sum of £28 and receive the numbers for free. I chose the latter,
feeling the small difference would let me see see what benefit there is in
having RYA membership.
Application for an IRC
rating certificate
This is an easy enough process, although it is daunting at first.
Before you go any further, note the RORC website: www.rorcrating.com
and also call RORC and request the IRC Yearbook (published by Yachting
World). Not only is it free, it is far easier to use than their website.
The IRC system is a self
measurement system for obtaining a racing category for an individual boat.
Unlike the Portsmouth Yardstick (PY) rating system, for example, the
performance of a boat in terms of her success or failure, does not vary
the rating. The measurements are submitted, the secret calculations made,
and the certificate issued. From then on the rating is constant and you
either give time to, or have it deducted from, your finishing time
relative to the competition.
The certificate issued is
for your TCC rating in which each 0.001 difference in the rating number
equates to approximately 3.6 seconds per hour. It is calculated by
multiplying the elapsed time (ET) by the TCC to produce the corrected Time
(CT)
Consider two boats, Boat A
with a rating of 1.000 and Boat B with a rating of 1.010 - the difference
is multiplied so 10 x 3.6 = 36. Therefore, Boat A gives Boat B about 36
seconds per hour of racing.
Sergeant Pepper will likely
be in the Class 3 zone for the Triangle Race, as her rating will likely
fall in the band of 0.890 - 0.910. Class 0 is for all boats with ratings
above 1.000 (as of February 11th I am waiting for the certificate).
Is She Ready?
For my Summer cruise in 2001 I had sailed to Ireland, cruising along
the South coast from Dunmore East to Glandore Bay. It was a lazy family
cruise with exciting passages there and back but a very leisurely "in
between". Preparations for that cruise included adding a removable
inner forestay to enable use of the hank-on working jib, improvements to
much of the wiring and innumerable trips to the chandlers for parts and
big ticket items such as a dinghy and an outboard. It was a very
successful trip, with the only gear failure being the anchor/steaming
light at the mast head.
My goals for 2002 were
defined in the first instance by my wife, Candace, deciding to visit the
States to visit her family and attend a big party for her parent's 50th
wedding anniversary. As she was going for three weeks, that opened up the
chance of a single-handed cruise to Ireland.
I heard of the Triangle
race in late January and realised that I could take all of June as holiday
and quickly found my mate, Mike Jones (who sails a Trapper 400), was
interested in joining the fun.
Preparations have included
many lists, but mostly small items to comply with the ORC regulations.
These have included buying an additional bucket, attaching wooden plugs to
each of the through-hulls, an additional tether, more charts and pilots
etc. there have been two big bills, however, one for the mandatory 406 MHz
EPIRB and another for the purchase of two new winches.
The winches on Sgt. Pepper
were made by Knowsely and were obsolete years ago, the manufacturer having
gone out of business. While they were two speed, they had high gearing and
were getting stiff with old grease. I didn't dare take them apart because
I knew there were no spares. As a two handed race is little more than
taking turns single-handing, this seemed the ideal opportunity to set this
state of affairs right.
