Welcome to the IYC Cayuga Lake Cruising Fleet!

The Cruising Fleet is a group of people—most of them members of the Ithaca Yacht Club—who love to sail and who have been organizing sailboat racing events for a long time. We have races almost very Sunday from early May to the middle of October.

Whether you have a keelboat or not, we invite you to join us. If you have keelboat, you may consider sailing in our events. If you don't have a boat, you may consider sailing as a guest or crew with one of our skippers. There are always some boats that are short-handed. All you have to do is come to the South Pavilion of the Ithaca Yacht Club around noon on a Sunday and ask one of the skippers to direct you to the Fleet Captain and he or she will find a boat for you to sail on.

Our sailing events are of four kinds: informal practice races on Wednesday evenings, around-the-buoys races on Sundays, so called "latitude" mid-distance races also on Sundays during the summer, and four long distance races that usually start on Saturdays and run into Sundays.

This year, we have a Spring and Fall Series of ten races each. Those require a certain amount of experience and are open only to skippers who are registered with the Cruising Fleet and have paid their racing fees.

However, the summer latitude and long distance races as well as the Wednesday evening practice races are "open" events, that is, they are open to anyone with a sailboat, and there are no registration fees.

The main events this summer are the six latitude races of the Johnson Boatyard Cup Series. In those races, boats don't race around buoys but sail to individual latitudes and back, the latitudes being determined by the race committee on the basis of each boat's official Performance Handicap Rating. This makes computing corrected finish times unnecessary because faster boats sail longer distances than slower boats. So the boat that first re-crosses the start/finish line is the winner. These latitude races offer sailors who haven't competed before the opportunity to get some no-pressure racing experience without the hazards of crowded starts and mark-roundings.

The four long-distance races—also open events—are the 12.5 mile Sheldrake Race with a post-race party at O'Malley's restaurant; the 50-mile day race and the 50 mile night race to Navigation mark 51A (near Union Springs); and the 28 mile race to the Red Jacket Yacht Club near the northern end of Cayuga Lake.

For additional information, check the Frequently Asked Questions, Sailboat Racing for Cruising Sailors, and the 2017 Racing Schedule. If you are interested in joining us, please contact the Fleet Captain at CayugaLakeCruisingFleet@gmail.com

---