Ontario Sailing Grand Prix Series and Regional Championships preview

by Ontario Sailing Association on 28 Mar 2012 Ontario Sailing Grand Prix Development Series 2012 season kicks off with the Lilac Festival at Royal Hamilton Yacht Club on May 25th.

The goal of the Series is to encourage participation and athlete development at the development level. In addition, the Grand Prix circuit builds excitement and promotes healthy development by controlling the participation at provincial events with the application of the point weighting system.

New for 2012 is the Ontario Sailing Regional Championships. These events are stand alone regattas targetted at the Learn to Sail Fast and Learn to Train levels of Long Term Sailor Development. Targetted primarily at youth, some events will also be offered for adults. The events are intended to be a good introduction to racing before the athletes start to travel to events such as the Grand Prix Series. Each event is hosted by a Club and Ontario Sailing will be giving awards to the top three clubs participating in the regatta.

How the Grand Prix Series works: Every sailor participating in the indicated events above in the following classes will be considered part of the series and will be scored: Laser, Laser Radial, Optimist, Club 420, 29er and new for this year Open BIC

Host clubs will forward $3.00 (includes HST) per participant to Ontario Sailing as a participation fee for all those participating in the above classes.

Each regatta in the series will be allocated a particular number of points based on the weighted value of that particular regatta. This value will coincide with the number of participants that will receive points (eg. If the regatta is worth 30 points only the top 30 in each calss will receive points with 30 points awarded to first place 29 awarded to second…. And so on….)

Each athlete will be able to use a maximum of five regattas to count to their total score and only a maximum of two regattas per month.

For the Optimist and Open BIC, 50% of the events will be used for scoring (for example if there are four events in total that the Optimist is included in, then the athletes top two events will be scored).

After each regatta a series leader in each class will be recognized and will wear the 'Series Leader' Bib at the next regatta. After the last event a winner in each class will be recognized.

The only classes that will be scored as part of this series are: Optimist, Laser, Laser Radial, Club 420, Open BIC and 29er. There will not be separate scoring for males and females. There will not be separate scoring for all the fleets in Optimist, the overall results will be used for scoring purposes.

In order to qualify for the series, participants will be no older than 20 years of age as of December 31st of the series year for the Optimist, Laser, Laser Radial, Club 420, Open BIC and 29er classes.

The winner of each class will be recognized at the Ontario Sailing Annual General meeting in January. Athletes finishing in the top five in each class, excluding the Optimist and Open BIC, will be invited to join the Ontario Sailing Development Team in the fall of 2012.

Grand Prix Development Series Regattas 2012:

Event	Location	Dates	Total Points Available
Lilac Festival	Royal Hamilton YC	May 25th - 26th	20
RCYC Open	Royal Canadian YC	June 9th - 10th	25
Sarnia SailFest	Sarnia YC	July 6th - 8th	30
Fogh Boorman (Optimist)	Royal Hamilton YC	July 7th - 8th	30
Four Sisters	Port Credit YC	July 21st - 22nd	30
Nepean YC (Open BIC)	Nepean Sailing Club	July 28th - 29th	30
SAIL Central	Hudson YC, Quebec	July 26th - 29th	50
National Capital Regatta	Britannia YC	August 11th - 12th	30
CORK International CORK OCR (29er)	CORK	August 13th - 16th  August 18th - 22nd	50
Fall CORK	CORK	September 22nd - 23rd	35

How the Regional Championships work: Every sailor participating in the indicated events above in the following classes will be considered part of the event and will be scored: Laser, Laser Radial, Optimist, Club 420, 29er, Open BIC, Boards and other classes as the Club has the ability to support such as the Albacore, Y Flyer etc.

Host clubs will forward $3.00 (includes HST) for two day events, $2.00 (including HST) for one day events per participant to Ontario Sailing as a participation fee for all those participating in the regatta.

Regional Championship Regattas 2012:

Ontario Sailing Association website

Event	Location	Dates	Classes
Big Sound Challenge Ontario Cottage Country	Sail Parry Sound	July 2nd - 5th	420, Laser, Radial, Optimist, Open BIC
North Shore REgatta (Adult & Youth) Ontario North	Sudbury Yacht Club	July 21st & 22nd	Laser, Y-Flyer
South Port Open Western Ontario	South Port Sailing Club	August 4th - 5th	Laser, Radial, Club 420, 29er, 505
Saint James Town Good Friends (Adult &  Youth) Toronto	Saint James Town    Sailing Club	August 4th	Laser, Club 420 (white sails)
Sept Fanfare Regatta Eastern Ontario	Nepean Sailing Club	September 8th - 9th	Laser, Radial, Club 420, 29er
Cornish Hen Regatta Central Ontario	Royal Hamilton YC	September 8th - 9th	Check RHYC website
High School Regatta	Bronte Harbour YC	September 14th	Check NoR