Racing at Ely

Thursday Evening Racing

Thursday evenings are when we run two relaxed races alongside social sailing. The courses are kept simple, the atmosphere is welcoming, and all beginners are encouraged to use Thursday Evenings to begin getting into racing. If you have little to no experience in racing, come along on a Thursday and give it a go! The results over the season are tallied up and the winner awarded a prize, while the final Thursday evening of the season hosts the George Washington Cup - a trophy that can only be won by sailors who have never won a non-commitee awarded prize before.

Sunday Afternoon Racing

Sunday afternoons are when our usual racing series takes place. The Sunday racing schedule features four series consisting of Spring, Summer, August Mini, and Autumn. Each series contains approximatley 10 races and 75% of races run will count. The pursuit series runs all season long with 1 pursuit race each week.

The usual schedule of races is a Handicap Race, followed by a Pursuit Race, and then another Handicap Race afterwards. In August, all races are pursuit races, which are excluded from the season pursuit series.

The first race starts promptly at 13:00. Please ensure your boat is rigged and that you're ready to start by that time.

Trophy Events

Some Sundays have special trophy events in place of the usual series races. These include the Easter Egg Races, Camweld Trophy, Whitsun Cup, Roswell Monster, Jamie Butcher Memorial Races, Halloween Races, and more. These events start at the earlier time of either 11:00am or 11:30am, dependent on the time of year, in order to accommodate an additional race on the day. This means they have four races with the best three races counting. Please check the calendar for full details on the specifics of each of these races.

Trophies

Cups are awarded for all Ely SC class fleets, which can be found on the fleet page of the website, based on the points for the best 10 class races of the season, plus awards for runners-up, aggregate points and cadet trophies.

There are also cups for each Handicap and Pursuit series (Cadet and Adult) based upon points from the best counting races and on aggregate points over the whole series.

There are trophies for one-day events, as well as committee awarded prizes such as best crew, best capsize, most improved helm (Cadet and Adult), social sailing and for those who excel in promoting and encapsulating sportsmanship and clubmanship within the club.

Last updated 12:55 on 15 March 2025