What’s on the Category 1 equipment audit, and how long is it valid?
For ocean racing, Australian Sailing’s Special Regulations require a Category 1 equipment audit on an official AS form. The forms are tiered from Category 7 (least stringent) to Category 1 (most stringent), with separate monohull and multihull versions.
A Cat 1 form runs to well over a hundred individual checkable items: structural integrity, hatches, jackstays and clipping points, anchoring, fire-fighting, flares, lifebuoys, storm sails, liferaft, EPIRB and a first-aid contents list among them. Each item is ticked and initialled by both the boat’s Person in Charge and an accredited Australian Sailing National Equipment Auditor. (The exact item count varies by edition, so always work from the current form.)
An audit is valid for 12 months from the date of audit, and Australian Sailing forms expire annually on 30 June. Audits are subject to spot checks, and a boat cannot compete without a current audit on file.
The Purser works from the current official AS audit form, so the list it shows is the one your auditor uses, not a generic checklist. On your boat it ties each line to what you actually carry and flags the earliest-expiring item (EPIRB, flares, liferaft, lifejackets).
General information for Australian operators, current as of 2026-05-30. Rules change and recreational rules vary by state. Always confirm against the source(s) linked above (your AMSA, Australian Sailing or state maritime authority). This is not legal advice.