Spotlight on Risk Assessment Form for Race Management
As the environment in which our sport operates continues to evolve, it is important that best practice in effective race management continues to evolve with it. To this end, we have updated our ‘generic’ Event Risk Assessment Form (available on the Irish Sailing website – Link below) with the following changes.
The first update relates to where a club may be hosting more than one race fleet simultaneously in close proximity. It is imperative that relevant communication plans are in place between race management teams prior to going on the water to ensure that there is no overlap of race areas. This is particularly important to ensure racing fleets of varying sizes (dinghies & keelboats both competing in separate events) do not converge into the one race area. The question is now added as a checklist item on the Event Risk assessment form:
Have you discussed your proposed race area with ALL other potential fleets prior to launch, to ensure your race course will not be encroached?
The second update relates to deploying a sense check to ensure that the conditions on any race day are suitable for all fleets of all sizes. The questions added (under the initial assessment) are designed to challenge race management to ensure all aspects of the weather have been considered, noting any large differences in the structural design of boats competing to deal with potentially challenging conditions.
Are the conditions suited to ALL racing classes to compete ?
Should certain fleets be stood down because of data received from predictive weather models?
Finally, a Sailing Regatta incident report template has also been added to the Risk Assessment link below. This template should be used to record an incident or accident during an event and should be completed so that learnings for the future can be achieved.
The link to the Irish Sailing website were the amended Event Risk Assessment Form and Regatta Incident Form is located is here Irish Sailing > Library > Racing