Is inflation impacting Nationals Attendance?

Originally posted by Mozzy Originally posted by turnturtle The conundrum of servicing the needs of those who might get in the Top 5 or 10 vs providing enough bang for buck to get the middle and end of the fleet to even show up, is nothing new. Who knows, with foreign holidays and flights getting ever-so much more expensive, then perhaps a nationals event somewhere decent on UK coastline, tied into a wider family holiday, might not be done-for quite yet. I just got back from Merlin Week. Bit of a deviation from the sailing I normally do, but also very fun. Different, but works well for the same reason that Fed week works well (or most regatta weeks for that matter). One race a day so plenty of time for family and very little time waiting between races.

Edited by turnturtle - 12 Jul 22 at 3:48pm

Originally posted by Paramedic Originally posted by Mozzy But even toward the social end of the fleet people often over egg the number of races they want... If you poll the fleet facebook group 5 months out from the event I would Imagine more races often getting more votes... but come the 4th races of a 20 knot day with a few recalls and breakages thrown in, then the attrition rate is stark, not just on the water but the knock on impact to the bar takings the same evening too!   This is so true. The other point when you have a mix of competitors ranging from those who will sit in the boat park till 19:00 on the off chance of a race to those who after an hour want to build sandcastles/go to the eden project/lands end/etc etc its really hard to strike a balance. The balance - in some ways unfortunately - has to be towards the family sailors as the the upper echelon will come to your nationals almost regardless if the racing is good. Put the families off and youll struggle to make 25 boats. In pretty much any fleet.

Paramedics point about what demographic of the attendees to aim at I think is the most important. You should aim to make the event for the mid to back end of the fleet. Without them there’s only the equivalent of an open meeting. Make it sociable and if at all possible camping/campervans on-site too. I always found the best venue for me was Stone SC. Middle of nowhere, camping on site which meant almost everyone stayed at the club and lots of beer was drunk, etc. many friends made by all which cemented nationals attendance again and again.

Edited by maxibuddah - 12 Jul 22 at 10:25pm

Originally posted by turnturtle I sailed past Stone at the weekend, plenty of boats out - even saw a guy on an RS600 completely bossing it in a F5, looked like he had a 600FF sail up with the square top... amazing to think that's a 30 year old design now.

The Blaze Nats were at Stone this year, great club, lovely people and very well organised event. We had 43 boats and onsite camping was pretty much full as far as I could see. The boat park was busy too, I suspect it would be pretty crowded with 70+ boats.