Entries for the CYCA Summer Season are officially open, and if you’ve raced with us before, you’ll notice this calendar isn’t quite the one you remember.

Inshore, offshore, coastal, spinnaker or non-spinnaker, the breadth is still there.

But underneath it, several series have been rebuilt from the ground up, and it’s worth understanding why.

Every year, the Sailing Committee sits down with the feedback our fleet gives us, from post-race surveys, entry trends, and the conversations that happen on the docks after racing.

This year, that feedback pointed clearly in one direction: sailors wanted more variety in their offshore racing, a genuine step up from short-course to blue water, and a reason to keep the boat ready to go and the crew together. The changes below are our answer to that.

The Big Change: SSOS Returns to Its Roots

The headline change this season is in the Network Insurance House Summer Short Offshore Series (SSOS). Last season, SSOS has run as Windward/Leeward racing, tight, tactical, and a good test of boat-handling, but not what most of the fleet associate with “offshore.”

This season, SSOS returns to SOPS-style racing. Boats will start and finish in the Harbour, race out to a mark, complete a number of laps, and finish back through the Heads at Watsons Bay. It’s a format that rewards navigation and endurance as much as boat speed, closer to the offshore racing the series was built for.

We haven’t forgotten the sailors who came up through our Short Haul Pointscore and want to take the next step without committing to a full offshore course. Non-spinnaker courses in SSOS will be shorter, giving that fleet a genuine, achievable path out through the Heads for the first time.

The Night Harbour Series

If Twilight racing has ever left you wanting more, the Night Harbour Series is worth your attention. It’s long inshore passage racing, run at night, for both spinnaker and non-spinnaker fleets, a genuinely different way to sail on Sydney Harbour.

Beyond the novelty of sailing at night in the Harbour, there’s a practical purpose here too: for crews eyeing overnight offshore races, night sailing is some of the most valuable training you can get. For everyone else, it’s simply a new season staple worth trying once and, we suspect, more than once.

Pittwater Passage Series

The old Short Haul Passage Races have had a proper refresh, relaunching this season as the Pittwater Passage Series, now with a spinnaker division for the first time. The format: race up to Pittwater, spend the night at RPAYC or RMYC enjoying the hospitality on offer, then race back to Sydney the following day.

It’s offshore racing with a social aspect built in, and a format that rewards crews who want their racing calendar to double as a weekend away. A separate Notice of Race and entry process will be released shortly, keep an eye on your inbox and the CYCA website for details.

The Unchanged Calendar Staples

Not everything needed reinventing. Three series remain the backbone of the Summer Season calendar, unchanged and as popular as ever:

• Monday Twilight Series kicks the week off the way it always has with tight, spinnaker short-course racing that rewards sharp starts and clean boat-handling.
• Club Marine Wednesday Twilight Series remains the social sailor’s race. Whether it’s your first season in yacht racing or your hundredth, Wednesday nights on the Harbour with friends and a sunset backdrop are as good an introduction or as good a wind-down as this sport offers.
• Coastal Pointscore continues to bridge the gap between short-course and blue water, combining the two shorter ACSBWPS races with two SSOS daytime passage races. If you’ve been circling the idea of offshore racing but haven’t taken the leap, this is still the most natural place to start.

If you have questions about any series, the Sailing Office is on hand and happy to help.