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Sailboat racing is enabled by multiple organizations. The right thing to do is to join and support these organizations so that this great activity of ours will flourish. With that in mind, here is our order of priority for joining these organizations. The first three are musts.
Lightning Fleet 50
That’s us. We only ask skippers for $20. This pays for awards at our annual dinner and party, and pays a small part of the cost of our annual operating expenses. Fleet 50 dues are on a calendar year basis. To join Fleet 50 as a Skipper use this form: Fleet 50 membership form
Potomac River Sailing Association
To participate in the PRSA Spring or Fall Series you must be a member. To sail in any regattas you need a club affiliation yourself. PRSA gives you that. But PRSA directly helps Fleet 50 in many other ways. For example, they lend us their power boat for our Lightning Labs and Down-River Cruise events. They lend us their Ollie and VHF radios for the Potomac Cup. Their insurance covers us at the Potomac Cup.
PRSA dues go towards buying and maintaining the powerboats that serve as RC boats; they pay the slip fees at WSM for these boats; they pay for liability insurance to cover people who are serving on the RC boat; they pay for RC equipment including marks, flags, and radios; they pay newsletter printing and mailing expenses; and they pay for gas for the boats.
The dues are $90 for a full skipper membership, that is, for a skipper with a boat or two, and $25 for an associate membership. First time new skippers get a discount and pay only $65. Its the best deal in the whole area by far. Please join.
- To join PRSA as a skipper use this form: PRSA membership form
- To join PRSA as an associate use this form: PRSA Crew Membership Form
- Alternately, you can sign up on line and pay via U.S. Mail or PayPal.
PRSA Dues are on a per-season basis, April through March.
International Lighting Class Association
This organization has a lot to do with the Lightning being one of the most popular one-design classes out there. They put out a monthly newsletter and an annual yearbook. They set the rules that allows our boats to stay modern but relatively inexpensive. They help us buy and sell used boats. In short, they maintain the value of our boats.
The dues are $45 per year for boat owners which includes a yearbook on CD and e-Flashes, the monthly newsletter. The dues for non-owners range from $10 to $38 depending on the publications you want (see below). To sail in the Dixie District Championship the skipper and crew must be ILCA members.
| Category | What You Get | Dues |
| Active (Boat Owner) | Yearbook on CD & e-Flashes (Monthly Newsletter) | $45.00 |
| Active (Boat Owner) | Yearbook on CD & paper Flashes | $57.00 |
| Crew | e-flashes | $10.00 |
| Crew | Paper Flashes | $22.00 |
| Associate | Yearbook on CD & e-Flashes | $26.00 |
| Associate | Yearbook on CD & paper Flashes | $38.00 |
| Hardcopy Yearbook ordered before June 1 | $20.00 | |
| Hardcopy yearbook ordered after June 1 | $25.00 |
NOTE: The join on-line form has spaces for Active & Associate memberships only. However, non-owners can use the form to get the less expensive memberships by indicating the type of membership and dues you want to pay in the “Comments/Special Requests” box at the bottom of the join on-line form. Jan Davis, the class secretary, processes each on-line request manually anyway.
Memberships in ILCA are on a calendar year basis. If you join after July, your membership is good through the end of the subsequent calendar year..
Joining ILCA is simply the right thing to do. Please join.
US Sailing
Membership is $50 but includes a subscription to Sailing World, discounts on entry fees to many regattas, and discount coupons at West Marine. New members get a copy of the rulebook and renewing members get new editions when they are published.
US Sailing does a lot for sailboat racing as a sport. For example, they work hard to improve the quality of race committee work. One of their instructors came over and conducted a day-long course on basic race management for PRSA.
Chesapeake Bay Yacht Racing Association
Membership is $30. Join CBYRA and US Sailing through CBYRA and save $10 on the combo- $70. http://www.cbyra.org/application.pdf
CBYRA benefits the local sailing community by organizing numerous events and functions throughout the year. They also support regattas financially. For example, they gave Fleet 329 at SSA $600 to help run the NAs in August 2000.
Members of CBYRA are eligible for the CBYRA High Point Award. In 2000, there were 10 Lightning regattas at CBYRA clubs and Phil Grotheer won the award by doing well in 5 of them.