This Brightlingsea webcam is mounted on the Brightlingsea Sailing Club’s Race Management Centre, looking across the creek to Point Clear. The club’s races are started from a line that runs from the mast in the foreground through the triangle on the foreshore, so the camera is well placed to show all the starting action.

If you’ve been walking along the prom when racing is taking place, you’ll have heard the hooters going. They give a countdown to the start in minutes – the sequence is 5, 4, 1, go – and all boats should be to left of the line at the start. If any part of a boat is over the line at the start then there will be a second hoot to indicate that, and the boat must return back over the line before joining the race or it will be disqualified.

If a lot of boats are over the line, making it hard for the person starting the race to identify them, there will be a ‘General Recall’, indicated by three hoots, at which point all boats must return and wait for a new starting sequence to begin.

When boats finish the race they are given a hoot as they cross the line.

Thanks to the club for allowing us to link to the camera.