Think of it as FightClub For Sailors.
Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna go out and see how fast you can get your boat, board, or foiler around a set triangular distance course that no one around you can see.
The beauty of it is that you are actually racing against other sailors all around the world doing the same invisible distance courses on their home waters. You may be on the Strait of Georgia and racing another dude on the Solent. It’s bare knuckles, 2,000 miles apart.
Throw down a fast time and bring it back here and we’ll post it as you revel in the glory of admiration from your underground peers – like that dude on the Solent. Or suck and keep it quiet until you suck less and get faster. It’s all up to you.
Either way, you go back to work on Monday morning with a black eye and a serious attitude for having thrown down in the Global Regatta. It’s a win no matter how you slice it.
The Courses
The concept is simple..one or more triangular distance courses are projected onto various bodies of water across the globe via GPS coordinates. Some of those bodies of water are inland lakes or rivers, some bays, and some open ocean. Doesn’t matter.
The course distances to choose from are as follows:
Short Course: 2.5 nm
Long Course: 5 nm
We don’t want anything longer than that because this is a race for speed and beer, not a pleasant cruise for Metamucil. Get out there, throw down, have booze. Simple.
Here is an example of a 5-miler on the Chesapeake Bay:
Several courses have already been designed, submitted, and approved. So check out the currently accepted courses to see if you already have one in your area.
If your waters don’t yet have a course, feel free to design one for the world-renown BFSGR course directory.
Here are the instructions on how to do so.
The Mission
Go out on your boat/board/foiler, with as many or as few crew as you want or need. Race around the GPS-positioned “markers” on your particular course – using your GPS/plotter/etc. to see them. You can start at any mark and go in any direction you please – as you try mightily to pull down the fastest time for that particular course…and hopefully, all the other like-distance courses around the world.
Bear in mind that you HAVE to record your race (track) on your GPS device so that we can enter it into our system to verify. No GPS tracks – didn’t happen.
During the BFSGR Qualifiers round, you have 6 months to get your best time (January to June). You pick the conditions, the sail configuration, the crew, all of it, to ensure that you get the best time possible for your boat.
When you’re ready to enter your time, you can access your Private Team Page via a link that is provided to you when you sign up. You’ll see instructions there for entering your time and uploading your GPS data (KML format) for that race.
We keep track of all the submitted races and display the leaders in each league (boat class) throughout the Qualifiers. Then the top 2 teams emerge in each league, and square off for the Bloody Knuckle Championship Match. They have until November 15 to lay down their best time.
At the end of that championship match period, a winning team emerges and all of mankind buys that team a beer. It’s a beautiful thing.
No Whiners
We have very, very few rules. This is a free for all. There’s no racing/cruising classes, no spin/non-spin, none of that crap. And we sure as hell don’t use PHRF.
We do use very broad categories of boat types to make sure it’s not stupid…but if you want to use fuzzy math, measurement committees, protests and penalties to “win a race” – go somewhere else. Here it’s about sailing what you got and winning with it…or laughing off the humiliating losses with some scotch and balls.
If you find that you are a consistent loser in your league – just sail faster. Or buy a faster boat. It’s not that complicated.
Let’s Do This!
So if you’re ready for down and dirty, underground, global yacht racing – while trash talking the other punks in your area and across the planet, sign in, set up your account, and start sailing – fast.