Keelboat racing
PHOTOS RICK TOMLINSON/JOG
Race revolution
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One club is revitalising keelboat racing through the innovative use of technology. Georgie Corlett-Pitt speaks to JOG Race Captain Stuart Lawrence to find out more
t wasn’t that long ago that race results would take a couple of days to be posted, typically scribbled in pencil, recalls Stuart Lawrence, Race Captain of Junior Offshore Group – the keelboat racing club better known to many as JOG. While he says there was nothing unusual about the way the club was operating in a sport that is entrenched in tradition, the potential to transform a club on the brink of decline was tantalising. JULY 2022 Sailing Today with Yachts & Yachting
Stuart talks animatedly as he goes on to explain how, after a term volunteering on the JOG committee, he felt compelled to initiate real change. He knew the potential that technology has to accelerate change from his professional expertise as founder and director of Serversys, a business systems provider specialising in digital transformations. With that in mind, he stepped into a position first as a club flag officer, then as
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The new web portal has increased interest - bumper turn-outs and super close racing have become the norm
Captain and began to galvanise support to help realise a vision of JOG as the ‘yacht club of the future’ guided by the belief that, while fancy premises are not necessary to achieve that, a thriving, engaged multi-generational membership most definitely is. At the same time, he was aware of the importance of retaining JOG’s Corinthian values of promoting grassroots keelboat racing that had been built up over the club's 72 year history.
