2026 Notice of Race (NOR) Announcement

There are a number of exciting new changes to the 2026 VARC NOR and how the VARC Championship will be scored.

Link to *** 2026 VARC NOR ***

Divisions

There will now be 5 VARC Divisions:
Div. 0 (pennant 0): ORC APH Less than 480.0
Div. 1 (pennant 1): ORC APH 480.0 to less than 530.0
Div. 2 (pennant 2): ORC APH 530.0 to less than 580.0
Div. 3 (pennant 3): PHRF-BC 100-173.
Div. 7 (pennant 7): PHRF-BC 174-275.
Note: Due to low participation, Div 4 – Sportboat has been dissolved and those boats will be
able to race in either Div 2 or Div 3 depending on their PHRF-BC and ORC ratings.

Division Breaks

As the current APH breaks for Divisions 0,1,2 appeared to work well, the ability for a boat to
move between divisions with +/- 5 APH boats has been removed. We also reviewed the 2026
ORC Certificates available and there is limited change to the APH numbers with the new 2026
ORC VPP. Only a few boats took advantage of this clause over the last two years, but it was
often not recognized by clubs after entering creating confusion for scoring and requiring manual
recalculations for scoring the VARC Championship. This change had overwhelming support of
77% of the 2025 VARC Survey respondents with only 6% opposed.

VARC Boat of the Year (BOTY) and VARC Division & Series Championship

There will be a change to the VARC Boat of the Year (BOTY) and VARC Division Championship
and Series Scoring from the former Best 5 Distance Event Series and Best 5 Regatta Event
Series to Best 2 out of 3 Season Scoring Series (Spring, Summer, Fall). This change had
support of 54% of the 2025 VARC Survey respondents, with only 20% opposed.

The VARC Championship is now split up into 3 Season Series: 1) Spring Series; 2) Summer
Series; and 3) Fall Series, comprised of the following VARC Events.

Spring Series Events
RVYC VARC Opener Regatta
WVYC Southern Straits Race
WVYC Halibut Bank/Popham Island Race
BIYC Round Bowen Race

Summer Series Events
RVYC Waves Keelboat Regatta (not run in 2026)
VRC Summer Regatta
SYC SOAR Regatta
TCYC English Bay Scramble Race

Fall Series Events
DCYC Deep Cove Regatta
WVYC Howe Sound Regatta
RVYC Fraser River Lightship Race
KYC VARC Closer Regatta

For each Division, a boat’s Series score will be the sum of the boat’s best 3 scores in that
Series. This was originally designed to be Best 3 out of 4 Events for each Season. For each
division, a boat’s Division Championship Series score will be the sum of the boat’s best 2
Season Series scores (Spring, Summer and Fall).

Shorthanded Series

The Shorthanded Series Scoring will move from Best 5 Shorthanded Events (no drops) to Best
3 of 5 Shorthanded Events listed below and only use the Overall Scoring for WVYC RNSA
Shorthanded Race (rather than Day 1 and Day 2 as is currently the case). This change had the
support of 47% of the 2025 VARC Survey respondents, with only 15% opposed.

Shorthanded Series Events
WVYC Southern Straits Doublehanded Race
TCYC Passage Island Shorthanded Race
WVYC RNSA Shorthanded Race (Overall Scoring)
VRC Ken & Barbie Doublehanded Race
WVYC Jack & Jill Doublehanded Race

Two Boat Minimum Rule

A change to scoring single entries in a Division was made and a "two-boat minimum" rule was
added to the VARC NOR. The VARC NOR originally had clauses to address when Clubs that
did not use VARC Division breaks; allowing VARC to re-score those events to VARC Division
Breaks for the Overall Championship while enabling Clubs to choose breaks appropriate to their
local entries. However, with declining participation in some Divisions, we sometimes saw boats
grouped with different Divisions for starts and scoring, but the VARC NOR required us to re-
score the boat as if they raced by themselves. This was not the original intent of the rule.

So, a new rule was voted in such that at least two boats must be scored in a Division at an
Event for the results to be used for VARC BOTY and VARC Division Championship Scoring.
This change had overwhelming support of 69% of the 2025 VARC Survey respondents with only
12% opposed.

Division Sanctioned Events & Courses

The VARC NOR allowed Divisions to choose which Events and Course are included in their
Championship Series. Division polls were conducted for Div 0 and 1, which almost unanimously
chose to include the RVYC Salish Sea Regatta instead of the DCYC Deep Cove Regatta for
their Division Championship Scoring. The DCYC Deep Cove Regatta will continue to be scored
for Division’s 2, 3 & 7. Below is the 2026 VARC Schedule of Events and Division Sanctioned
Events & Courses.