With Twelve boats, three race days, and racing tight enough to be decided in tenths of a second, the inaugural HYC Melges 15 Autumn Series delivered from start to finish.

About the Series

A record 12 boats entered the HYC Melges 15 Autumn Series, racing a sprint format of four short races per day. One day was lost to weather but the fleet still completed 12 races across three race days, finishing on a rescheduled Saturday, 31 October.

All racing was run using the Vakaros RaceSense system, operated from a tablet on a single RIB rather than a traditional committee boat. No flags were needed, and the start timer was automatically synced to each competitor's instrument. Boats that jumped the gun (OCS) got an automatic on-screen alert that stayed lit, a quietly guilty and unforgiving red light :) until they turned back and recrossed the line properly! Results updated live from RaceSense as each race finished, so full results were available to competitors as soon as they were ashore.

Each day closed with prizegiving in the bar - a “Daily Champ” award for the best points total on the day, and a “Top Gun” prize for the fastest recorded speed of the day.

Daily Winners and Top Gun Prizes

Eoin Kernan's Day 1 top gun speed of 14.1 knots (Race 3) remained the fastest of the series!

Racing Highlights

The RaceSense data backs up what everyone felt on the water - This was really close fleet racing with no result in the bag right through to the downwind finish. Places kept changing on upwind and downwind legs

• Photo finish, Race 4 (Day 1): Stephen Quinn and Karena Knaggs crossed just 0.68 seconds apart for 4th and 5th place.
• Final race of the series (R12): Jack McMahon held off Stephen Quinn by under 3 seconds — 11:19.8 to 11:22.5 — to close out Day 3.
• Four-way battle, Race 5: Mark McLoughlin, Darren Wright, Cormac Farrelly and Mike Evans were separated by about 3.5 seconds across 2nd to 5th place.
• Best start of the series: Mark McLoughlin hit the line dead on in Race 8, recording a RaceSense distance-to-line reading of exactly 0.00m, the only perfect start of the series.

Overall Series Results

Full results for all 12 boats and all 12 races are on Sail Scoring. The Vakaros RaceSense player has every race recorded, so any competitor can go back and replay their own race: watch here.

Thanks are due to several people who made the series possible: Dylan Cassidy, who set the courses each day and ran the RaceSense system, and Keelin, who laid marks alongside him; Stephen, John and Mark, who loaned their own Vakaros units so we could install the racesense tech on the marks; John Sheehy at RStGYC, for all his support getting the series off the ground; and the Marina team, for helping get the marks prepped to carry the new tech.

Links

• Full results and standings
• Prizegiving photos
• RaceSense race replay

A record fleet, four incredibly tight sprint races a day decided by seconds, a civilised 11:00 start, and off the water by 1pm with results up before anyone had even changed out of their sailing gear - not a bad way to kick off the Melges 15 Autumn Series. This started as a trial run, but the fleet is definitely looking to rinse and repeat as a spring series - watch this space.

Report prepared by Cormac Farrelly, Melges 15 Class Captain, HYC