Serious Fun, Not Serious Racing

MAST (Milwaukee Area Sail and Trail) was organized by a group of trailer sailors who shared similar sailing interests in Milwaukee, WI. The motto of the Mast Yacht Club is ‘Serious Fun, Not Serious Racing’, and after just completing their 41st season, the club hasn’t lost any spirit.

The club just held its last race of the season, using a first-of-its-kind fun format that used sailing and darts to determine a winner. In the past they have sought amusement with various formats for the finale like a pursuit race or a Frisbee relay race, but this year went with the Regatta Dart Race.

The sailing race course was a normal twice around windward/leeward using standard PHRF handicaps. Once the race was over, everyone gathered on shore to try and improve their race position by throwing three darts. The total score of the three darts was then added to each boat’s standard PHRF handicap for the race.

“After each boat threw their darts, the race was rescored with the new addition to their handicap added in,” explained Ken Quant. “This shuffled things around a bit as the handicaps changed creating some unique and fun post-race party drama. We even projected the results up on the wall for everyone to see and they really seemed to love it.”

Dart scoring was the standard scoring using the double and triple rings. To keep things fair in case of any dart ringers in the race, each boat had to have three different people each throw only one dart. Boats threw their darts in the order of last place finisher to first place finisher based on the race results.

Each boat threw all three darts to complete their turn before the next boat’s dart throwers begin their turn to increase the drama. If a dart missed the board, the thrower was allowed re-throw it until that dart registered a score. Once all boats had thrown their darts, the winners were determined by the race results using their new dart-improved PHRF rating.

“There was beer, rum punch and a lot of Asian food harmed during this event,” Quant admitted. “But it all proved to be great fun and something other race organizers may want to try.”

Like they say, ‘Serious Fun, Not Serious Racing’.

Details on MAST racing…click here.