Offshore racing and the Yachtmaster: Sydney to Hobart and the category system

Australia's offshore racing calendar is one of the best mile-building systems in the world, and the Yachtmaster is the qualification that racing sailors most often use to prove they can skipper. The two fit together neatly if you understand the racing rules that govern safety and crew.

The category system

Australian Sailing's Special Regulations set equipment, stability, training and crew requirements for racing yachts, graded by the exposure of the race:

• Category 0 and 1: trans-oceanic and long ocean races, self-sufficient for extended periods (the Sydney to Hobart is Category 1).
• Category 2: races of extended duration along or not far from the coast (many overnight coastal races and the shorter ocean races).
• Category 3: races in relatively protected waters or close to shore (the classic weekend coastal passage races).
• Categories 4 to 7: short races in sheltered waters by day (club and harbour racing).

For Categories 1 and 2 the regulations require a set proportion of the crew (at least half in Category 1) to hold a current Safety and Sea Survival Course certificate, and a proportion to hold first aid. Individual races add their own requirements in the Notice of Race: the Sydney to Hobart requires the person in charge and a proportion of the crew to have previous ocean-race experience, and checks the yacht's compliance and the crew's certificates before the start.

Where the Yachtmaster fits

No Australian race requires the person in charge to hold a Yachtmaster. What organisers and owners look for is evidence: experience in equivalent races, safety training, and a qualification that shows the person in charge can navigate, manage a crew and make decisions. Yachtmaster Offshore is that qualification, and on many boats it is the reason a sailor is asked to be the navigator or the watch leader rather than the rail meat. The Safety and Sea Survival Course covers much of the safety content of the Yachtmaster syllabus and is worth doing early; it also counts as sea survival for the commercial endorsement in some circumstances (check with the RYA).

Racing as a logbook engine

Consider a season on the New South Wales coast:

• Twilight and weekend harbour racing: 20 days, minimal miles, a few night hours.
• Two or three Category 3 passage races (Sydney to Pittwater, Sydney to Port Stephens and return, Sydney to Wollongong): three or four passages over 60 miles, two of them overnight, 300 miles, 30 night hours.
• One Category 2 ocean race (Sydney to Gold Coast, Sydney to Southport, or the Bird Island race): 400 to 500 miles, two nights, more qualifying passages.
• Deliveries home from each of the above: skipper days and passages, often with a smaller crew.

A single season can supply the five qualifying passages, the night hours and half the miles. The skipper days are the constraint on a race boat, which is why the delivery home matters: volunteer to skipper it.

What racing does not teach

Racing crews are large, roles are specialised, and the navigator does the navigating. A racing sailor arriving at a Yachtmaster exam may have thousands of miles and no idea how to pick up a mooring under sail, anchor, or berth a boat under power in a crosswind. Fill the gaps deliberately: cruise, deliver, borrow a friend's boat, do the Coastal Skipper course. The examiner is not interested in your sail changes; they want to know whether you can bring the boat into a harbour at night with a plan.

The Sydney to Hobart and Yachtmaster Ocean

The 630-mile race is often assumed to be an Ocean qualifying passage. It usually is not, because the route stays within 50 miles of land for most of its length and fails the 200-miles-more-than-50-from-land rule, and because racing navigators rarely take sights. It does, however, count as a magnificent 60-mile-plus overnight passage for Offshore and as the kind of experience that makes an Ocean examiner's questions easy. See the Ocean passages guide.