Ladies & Gentlemen 12 October 2009
During the Shanghai / Nimrod cup several people approached me about the future of the event and I spent two days on the Committee boat with the race officers during which we had several useful discussions. There seems to be a feeling that in its present form the club has taken the event as far as it can reasonably go, this year, for I think the first time, we had no visiting boats. The club should not be seen to be standing still and although the existing arrangements have worked very well to date, they maybe reaching their ceiling in terms of entry level and attractiveness to other clubs. Therefore as a matter of course every so often a club such as ours should consider alternatives, especially for such a prestigious event & prize. I apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but hope it shows the thinking behind it and partly at least involves you, the competitors, in the process.
Below are the perceived advantages and disadvantages of the present system and also a couple of possible alternatives. We would like you to have the opportunity to consider them then we propose having a general open meeting after racing on Sunday 25th October – say 1pm in the ground floor bar.
Existing Arrangements:
Advantages:
Fair weather without being too hot and good breezes without being too strong and heavy such as often experienced later in the year.
In addition most competitors have returned from being away in July & August and therefore the attendance is likely to be better.
There is an event every weekend and this is usually the best month for the bar / catering.
It fills a gap between the summer holidays and autumn Sunday series.
It commits competitors to four very full weekends, possibly offputting for those with families, especially when the autumn series starts two weeks later and if they went to Dale at the end of August.
Those who work at least one day on a weekend may find it difficult to compete – if at all.
Visiting yachts may have a greater expense, especially if their boats are not suitable for staying on – notwithstanding they have free berthing for the duration of the series, they still have travelling expenses and travel arrangements to make. An early race start for those competitors may be off putting.
The club normally has to arrange social events for four weekends; and carry an expense that may not always be covered by ticket sales or recently sponsorship..
Sponsorship has been more difficult to obtain in recent years especially with the credit crunch.
Over a month the event is subject to the changing tides – not always that suitable for a days racing.
Option 1: We run the event over a four day period: Wednesday to Saturday.
Advantages:
We can choose the best week for tides.
Competitors don’t lose three weekends out of four in September.
They would need three days / possibly four days off work. Of these one is a Friday afternoon anyway & the other a Saturday. However, with planning and advance notification many competitors may be able to incorporate this into their annual leave pattern.
Visiting boats have to travel prior to the event & then go home again. This way they use two Sundays not five, this may be more attractive to them and be easier to manage.
The event would be continuous over a four-day period giving something of a party atmosphere.
There would less strain on the club’s facilities especially the car park on Sundays and less congestion in the locks.
Changing the event would give us a reason to advertise the change in the national yachting press and hopefully gain a wider entry.
It is a known model for events, well used across sport in general and may be easier to ‘sell’ to a potential sponsor.
The Sunday is a recovery day / sail home day etc, but gives time to recover prior to a new working week.
Arranging volunteer helpers may be easier.
Disadvantages:
We might be stuck with the weather; we could have four days of light winds or vice versa. The present arrangements give us a broad and probably varied weather pattern; it’s unlikely to be the same right through September.
Probably less social events, although the bar may do better than it would normally do in the week – whether it would make up for the loss of three weekends is a different matter.
Be difficult to repair any damage to a boat in the time. At the moment if someone tore a sail / damaged a mast etc they could conceivably have it repaired in time for the following weekend.
We could have more interesting racing, probably a weekend of races over high water and a weekend over low water.
We could still have two races on the Friday, a channel race on the Saturday and two short races on the Sunday for the first weekend and two races on the Friday, and two on the final Saturday – nine in total. (Careful planning could better this)
The club may do better socially, two weekends of events and we could run a race from Swansea to Cardiff the weekend before.
People would only have to take two Friday’s off, as opposed to a Wednesday, Thursday & Friday - may be easier for people to arrange.
Disadvantages:
Some weather patterns are more settled, a period of high can last a fortnight or more.
We can have a prize for each race – and a prize for a race from Swansea to Cardiff & indeed Newport to Cardiff if there were enough competitors. These are details we can work through later, in the meantime we hope to be able to start to plan, & more crucially advertise, next years event within the next couple of weeks so other clubs are informed well in advance and if people have to arrange leave there is ample time to do so.
Please do not think the change is being proposed for change’s sake, this year was the lowest number of competitors, in 1997 there were 11 teams, how many will there be in three years time? The proposal is not about the style of racing – the team format is popular & successful; it merely concerns how we run the event and how we can take it into the future. It should be an event that attracts a good proportion of outside competitors; we think the club should act before it becomes a sole club event.
Whilst we realize that your personal consideration will be paramount we hope you will consider the event as a whole and it’s benefit to the club, it maybe that you would not be able to do one of the options, but the boat you regularly crew on could do so. With that in mind, we would be grateful if you could express your preference & comments to the above by email to David Cairncross.
If you have a reasonable alternative to propose please email to both David Cairncross & myself at least a week before the 25th.
Thank you for reading this and taking part, I look forward to seeing you on the 25th.
With kind regards
Jonathan Crofts Davies
Commodore