IRC & WSCRA Handicap Races
The race programme co-ordinated by WSCRA and is designed to bring together all the best in sailing and social activities of our clubs, the host club will still be the organising authority for each club event.

WSCRA is the overall co-ordinating authority for the series, administering and co-ordinating the full programme. It also allocates handicaps to the non-IRC boats and awards prizes to the competitors; it also distributes free ‘Ringwood Beer’ for the first three boats in each race.

Most of our correspondence is sent out to all registered members by e-mail and displayed on the clubs’ notice boards, and hopefully posted on this web site. But some correspondence, which includes special information or free Beer Tokens, will be sent out through the post.

We remind competitors that they must contact the organising club before the individual event to obtain the race instructions and must abide by the rules appertaining to the race and to the host clubs house rules.

You can enter all or part of the series by contacting any of the clubs’ sailing secretaries or you can contact WSCRA direct.
Ask for a brochure and registration details

Contact:
Barry Dutton Phone: 01590 671577
33 Newbridge Way
Lower Pennington,
Lymington SO41 8BG
E-mail barry.dutton@btinternet.com

Ringwood Brewery is the generous sponsor of WSCRA. Apart from supporting the Association financially, Ringwood Brewery also give free beer tokens to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd boats in every race in both WSCRA classes, as well as an overall trophy for the series.

WSCRA would like to thank them for their continued support and help over the years and look forward to strengthening an already highly successful relationship.

Before 1973 forward thinking clubs, primarily for wealthy owners of large yachts, provided the only yacht racing in the Solent. Events such as Cowes week regatta and other major regattas were the only structured events, and were expensive. Very little organised racing for the smaller yacht could be found in the Solent area, or for that matter anywhere along the south coast. It was recognised that there was a demand for yacht races to cater for the vast majority of smaller yachts that abound in the Solent area. WSCRA came into being to satisfy this growing need for affordable and enjoyable yacht racing.

A consortium of six clubs combined their efforts to form the West Solent Cruiser Racing Association.The six original clubs were The Royal Lymington Yacht Club / The Royal Solent Yacht Club The Royal Southampton Yacht Club / Lymington Town Sailing Club / Hurst Castle Sailing Club / and Keyhaven Yacht Club.

A series of 12 races taken from all the clubs’ race calendars comprised the Championship series and three of the clubs provided a Regatta series of a further six races. This entire racing made for a formidable race programme and soon became the major race series in the Solent.

The events were all very well organised primarily because the organising club would be permanently trying to outdo the other clubs, in a competitive but a very friendly way. A member from each club made up a committee to co-ordinate the events and the organisation. They ensured a well-organised race season that could be enjoyed by everyone who wanted to sail.

Changes were inevitable. The advent of more and more identical production boats such as the Contessa 26 & 32 and later the J24 & sports boats found some clubs specialising in only one type of boat at the expense of the run of the mill handicap boats. These changed circumstances saw the gradual decline of enthusiasm for the WSCRA type racing, and in 1997 the WSCRA series was suspended. Quite a few ardent sailors regretted this sad demise.

Full Circle
The rather poor club keelboat racing programme and the resultant low turnout for the racing made some clubs think that it was not worth organising club racing for so few entries. Small boat racing looked to be dying through lack of interest. Barry Dutton [one of the original members] decided to try to rectify the situation. He came to the conclusion that the demise was not lack of enthusiasm but the wrong type of racing being offered.
Millennium Year
New WSCRA was reborn in 2000 but with only three of the premier clubs participating, RLymYC / RSYC / LTSC and in 2005 the KYC have come back into the consortium. The four clubs will jointly run a Summer Series of races and social activities mostly in the western Solent; the one exception is a mini series of races called the Hypotenuse Channel Triangle. This event is run over a long weekend in the middle of the summer sailing to Cherbourg and either Alderney or Saint-Vaast-La-Hougue as the second port of call.
This Mini Series is a very popular event where we can socialise with everyone from our neighbouring clubs.

* * *

* Your chance to experience the type of sailing we all enjoyed when we bought our first Big Boat! And sailed it with all our friends from our neighbouring clubs

*You will be competing in IRC or WSCRA handicap events in a separate series derived from the race programmes of our three clubs.

The WSCRA race series has been selected from the race programmes of RLymYC / RSYC / LTSC / & WSCRA itself, offering a wide ranging series of events throughout the year, the races we have chosen all have an element of enjoyment as well as good racing.

WSCRA is the overall organising authority for the series, administering and co-ordinating the full programme, also allocating handicaps and awarding prizes to the competitors. It also organises some of the social events.

*If you can achieve better than average results after we have given you a generous handicap, you, and your crew will receive free beer tokens, generously supplied by our sponsors Ringwood Brewery

* We remind competitors that they must contact the organising club before each event to obtain race instructions, and must abide by the rules appertaining to the race, and to the host clubs house rules.