Insignia and Sail numbers

A post in response to a query on FaceBook and to while away some time as I wait to go sailing.

Unlike those produced by many sailmakers
the "A" of the insignia should be pointed,
not square.

The history part of this is largely from memory which is better for things 50 odd years ago than for things that happened yesterday! But I might be a little off. Statements about more recent / current things have been fact checked.

Why have Sail numbers?

Whilst designers and builders of boats probably like to have numbers on their boats, at least if they are selling well, the main driver for sail numbers is racing and to a lesser extent for search and rescue (SAR) so that boats can be positively identified. 

Race committees need to know which boats started and when they finished and if there are a lot of boats they don't have time to read boat names. Also they need to be able to identify rule breakers, particularly on the start line and this led to strict rules as to size of the numbers (iirc originally related to luff length) and positioning of the numbers so they can be seen, "keen" owners still tried their best to hide them by positioning the numbers as far back on the mainsail as allowed so they would not be as visible if they were over the line at the start.

For series built boats from a single builder - like the Achilles Boats and the Mirror dinghy #10784 I bought as a kit in 1967 - the normal thing was for the builder to allocate the hull number as the sail number this worked fine, at least initially. 

Problems arise when there is more than one builder and at this point the numbers were and are usually allocate by a formal class association but this does not work for "one off" boats, or perhaps for boats built in multiple countries. It can also be problematic in mixed fleets where the number is qualified by class insignia. At this point some order needed to be bought to the situation and numbers started to be allocated by national authorities or their nominees. 

The current rules by "World Sailing" can be found under RRS Appendix G here.

Country specific numbers.

Were introduced early on, that for UK was for years "K" placed above the numbers as a prefix. Then for some reason it was replaced by a more expensive and cluttering "GBR".

UK Issuing authorities.

Whilst class associations continue to issue numbers for many boats, national authorities and their delegates' took over many. In UK there are three, the Royal Yachting Association (RYA), The Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) and the Clyde Yacht Clubs' Association (CYCA)..

RYA

As the national authority the majority of modern sail numbers for offshore yachts are allocated by the RYA, modern ones are prefixed by L, N or X and M for multihulls.

RORC

The RAFSC UFO34 "Black Arrow"
named for 111 squadron "The Black
Arrows with its RORC members sail
number and then UK identifier.
 ©️unknown.

Back in the day RORC allocated a lot of numbers and in the 70's they were structured:

0 - 999    Allocated to members of RORC.

1nnn    RORC Class 1 boats.

2nnn    Class 2 boats (including 2 tonners).

3nnn    Class 3 boats (including one tonners).

4nnn    Class 4 boats (including 3/4 tonners).

5nnn    Class 5 boats (including 1/2 tonners).

From 1993 the suffix "R" was added, I don't think the class number is still used but older boats will still have them as these numbers, unlike the members numbers, stay with the boat.

CYCA

Are approved under RRS Appendix G and have the suffix "C", they can still be obtained. 

Achilles Yachts.

The vast majority of Achilles yachts will display the Butler hull number but a few will show one of the others and some will have both. 

There is the possibility of confusion as each model has it's own series so for example Sancerre A9m #21 has the same Insignia and number as the similarly sized A840 "Tocviria".

Sancerre A021 also has an RYA allocated number. Here displayed
on the guard rails for the 2019 Jester, useful for SAR - hopefully
to disregard Sancerre as the boat in trouble! Pic J. Lashbrook.

The following Achilles have CYCA numbers allocated although they do not necessarily display them:

One of several A24s with a Clyde sail number
and the correct Insignia. (pic pinched from Facebook)

A peculiarity of sails sold with Achilles
boats and some replacements is that they had
leading zeroes to make 3 digits. Sancerre's
old star cut. Pic J. Lashbrook.