There is a schedule of races on Sundays from March to December, and on Wednesday evenings from April to mid-September. There are various different series, with nine ‘Club Championship’ days throughout the year. All these races are run by an experienced Officer of the Day (OOD) with a Safety Boat crewed by two qualified club members. The schedule of races is found on our calendar of events.
In addition, some members take part in informal racing on Wednesday afternoons through the year and on Sundays in January & February. These have no OOD or crewed Safety Boat. The start is on an ‘honesty’ basis, and the safety boat will be on the water tied to the jetty ready for use should it be required.
As of 2025, FOSSC is only running Handicap and Pursuit style racing. Class racing, for those classes which regularly see 6 or more boats in a race, may be re-introduced in the future.
For those new to dinghy racing: different classes of boat have different speeds so a set of handicap numbers has been developed by the Royal Yachting Association (the Portsmouth Yardstick, PY) which allows all classes of boat to compete on an equal footing. FOSSC makes some adjustments to these in order to provide ‘Club Numbers’ which are used to calculate final positions. Spinnaker boats are given +20 points to the RYA published PY.
For more information on how the different types of races are run, see ‘Different Types of Racing’ at New to Racing – FOSSC.