#rya – The RYA Race Officials Conference is fast becoming a major international event writes Irish National Judge and Umpire Gordon Davies.
This year the conference returned to Wyboston Lakes in Cambridgeshire, far from the sea but north of Watford and convenient for train and air travel and an Irish race officer delegation attended.
This biennial event continues to grow. Earlier conferences were organised for Race Officers, Judges and Umpires. In 2011, Mark-layers were invited for the first time in 2011. The 2013 edition was notable for the presence for the first time of Measurers. In all, 220 race officials attended the conference, with 21 visitors from 10 nations: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Slovenia, Canada, USA, Russia and Ireland.
This year, as Ed Alcock, ISA Racing Manager explains "Members of the ISA Race Officials Advisory Group attended and contributed to 20 workshops during this conference as a means to learn from the RYA education system to the benefit of officials and sailors in Ireland."
The highlight of the event are the large number of workshops treating a wide variety of subjects. Whilst the speakers are selected for their knowledge of the subject the participants are often experts in their own right. I was somewhat surprised, for example, when called upon to speak on the rather obscure subject of umpiring radio-sailing regattas, to be faced with an audience including several well-known umpires including not only the editor in chief of the Call Books for Match Racing and Team Racing, but also the person credited with inventing team racing umpiring Also listening attentively was a multiple World Champion in several Radio-Sailing classes, who is also a National Judge!
Chairman of the RO Advisory Group Jack Roy, who worked with many of the top British race officials before and during the Olympics revealed the reasoning behind this delegation: " It is important we have a close working relationship with our neighbours in the RYA, they are very generous with help and information. Having recently been responsible for, arguably the best Olympic Sailing Regatta ever, the RYA have first hand experience in providing the highest level of Race Management " Mike O'Connor added "It was great to work with such high level participation from the UK and around Europe on delivering unified race management and applying the new updates to the racing rules across different disciplines".
Bill O'Hara, fully recovered after his summer spent with the Russian Women's match racing team at the Olympics ran a workshop on "Raising Tactical Awareness for Umpires" Bill gave full credit to Chris Watts, RYA Race Officials Education Officer "The conference was incredibly well organised". Bill particularly appreciated the session on "Questioning Skills" run by John Sturrock, more accustomed to improving the interrogation skills of leading lawyers and parliamentarians, including members of Oireachtas. Bill O'Hara was one of several race officials from Northern Ireland to attend, including Robin Gray and Denis Todd.
Irish team racers will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that Peter Price was awarded the status of RYA Umpire Emeritus. Peter, from West Kirby, sailed and won the Wilson Trophy many times, and then ,in 1987, lead the first umpire team to officiate at the event. Peter has sailed many times in Ireland, both in team racing and in his Dragon, and has umpired at many events here.
Ed Alcock reminds us that the Irish participation at the conference will benefit local race officials "The ISA Annual Conference on March 2nd will include interesting points from these workshops in presentations from Jack Roy, Michael O'Connor and Ed Alcock in the areas of Race Management, rules issues in clubs and the new rules, including launching the new Racing Rule Book for 2013-2016.We would recommend all ISA officials and clubs to be present and look forward to receiving visitors from the RYA."
Presentations made at many of these workshops are available on the RYA website.
