As a side I thought that would be a good opportunity to use the new score of NSC... but they went with DSQ. Same points either way. 

Is it me, or are many classes losing the plot in terms of getting Natiionals results and reports published in a timely fashion?

Taking an interest in this year's champs for a few classes  might be influencing what people aspire to next year. When all you get is negatives and hearsay, it's not a good look.

Intrigued to know how things can go this badly wrong for a championships course. Champs usually have pretty simple courses compared to some of the 'pointless harbour tour' courses in our evening racing. Were the SIs in Kernish?

When that happens the race team have to be very careful not to give outside assistance to any boat!

Would be hugely unfair if there were a few people back down the fleet who could count and possibly set a dangerous precedent? 'I'm leading, so let's head for the finish now.....'

Could be a grey area if there's a 'target race duration' or getting near a time limit, people might reasonably assume the sane thing for the race team to do would be to shorten, and lets face it, the flags are not always that easy to see??

we don't have this problem at club level, tend to keep going until the blue flag goes up, just tell the guys in the boat not to use the blue flag to check the wind direction!

Maybe they are all having too much fun sailing and partying to care about outsiders at the moment.

Originally posted by ClubRacer Andy Ritchie came in from the left which cemented the fleets conclusion that left is good, to lead from Richard Instone and Tom Gillard. The breeze was holding at 6-7 mph and the spread of the fleet across the course was quite startling. Mark Lee and Malcolm Buchanan were next from Paul Ellis and Andy Tunnicliffe. The fleet rounded the leeward gates to complete one lap then did it all again for lap 2, Guy Mayger and Andy Davis working their way forward into the mix while Tom Gillard took the lead. The wind was dropping and the run down to complete lap 2 was pretty uneventful. I glanced at my watch and noted that we had been racing close to an hour, guess this would be the last lap? We motored down with the fleet, Umpire Steve Watson continued to scan the mast tops for signs of naughtiness while I looked toward the committee boat. A club tender was moored in position, upon it’s mast a brightly coloured flag hung limply, not looking at all interested in flying. We all commented that there was no blue flag which ordinarily denotes a finishing line and no shortened course flag. Tom chose to round the left gate but instead of hardening up for lap 3 he continued on toward the committee boat, the fleet following. Met with silence as he crossed the invisible line we fully expected the next competitor to harden up and head upwind but one after another, the sailors followed, the David Attenborough documentary on Lemmings sprang into my mind and still they continued to fall from the cliff. The race officer took finishing positions, the race though, following a lengthy protest hearing would conclude that all the competitors had failed to finish the race in the allotted time and were therefore DSQ’d. Sounds like a giant joke to me

What was the probability of the fleet completing another lap within the time limit?

All but 1 boat DNF. If its a inputting issue its a pretty big one to overlook before publishing as nobody can see their position without having to work out everyone's net points.

https://www.halsail.com/Result/Public/54560 

I can also attest that the club and class are run by volunteers, so whilst the lack of published results in the usual places may be regrettable, they are also on holiday.

I think that the RO was dealt a difficult set of cards, he knew that the forecast ENE winds were going to cause problems later in the week, so was probably under pressure to get races completed at the front end of the week, which may have resulted in the incident referred, and also allowed the subsequent race gate start to stand.

So, the RO, for whatever reason not having signalled shorten course, was happy not to score boats NSC, then a judge stepped in and protested.

What a very odd jury protest policy.

Three protests ensued one from the on water judge, protestor in his own name the protestee “the fleet”.

More bizarrely a claim for redress by the pathfinder for the subsequent race was upheld.  I believe that he argued that he was selected by being 10th in a race that he was DSQ/DNF, and was then prejudiced by having to head on out on port tack when the early starters benefited from going left, I could not work out why average points were granted to the pathfinder rather than the race being binned, though would have lost my best result of the week having started early and gone hard left!

Just doesn't make sense.

So I guess that they anticipated the ROs decision rather than look for the S flag.

Should add that visible signals were pretty hard to discern all week because the halyards on the committee boat were so close together.

I should add that MBSC off the water were exemplary, really hospitable, trolleys delivered to you at the waters edge etc..  I think that the RO felt under pressure to get races in.  There should have been more willingness to switch to line starts, and the RO insisted on using the gate boat RIB to move the windward mark which tended to delay the starts by which time the next 50 degree shift had come in.

Not a fan of gate starts, with modern methods setting a line is now less faff then it used to be pre GPS and i've never seen so much damage as the one event I've done with gate starts. Far more to go wrong and a disadvantaged competitor.

It doesn't sound quite that bad, and it really does sound as though the fleet categorically got it wrong.

If I was a class committee member my analysis would be based around ascertaining why. It certainly sounds as if the visual race signals were too hard to see. Maybe a RIB flying S off the leeward mark would help? You only need all the wrong circumstances to happen at the same time for a system that has worked for decades to have the wheels fall off and it sounds to me like this falls into that category.

This particular event lost 2 days sailing to no wind, one race to everyone getting it wrong combined with an officious judge and had one race hugely unfair race.  All pretty standard in my experience!

I think it depends on your expectations. If you go on a walking holiday expecting to while away days on the beach with a never ending supply of beverages arriving at a click of your fingers you're probably going to be disappointed.

Trying to mix a championships and a family holiday is always a compromise.  Things rarely go exactly to plan unless you are incredibly fortunate with the weather, which has been quite unusual for the last few weeks. When weighing up the do we / don't we debate on a marginal day the organisers have to deal with the 25% of the fleet who have gone solely to race - and 25% of those will happily sit by their boat until dark on the off chance of racing - and the 25% of the fleet who have gone for a holiday all of whom if its going to be canned want it canned early so that they can drift off. To be seen to please both of these camps is not possible, you have to adopt a middle ground and this means that both sides of the argument need to be reasonable, which they usually are.

Many classes have made large changes to championship structure and a week long event with 6 hour days on the water are now a thing of the past. The "long weekend" format where by racing is done by Tuesday also has merits as you then get the rest off the week for holiday but - in my view - this format is very inflexible and vulnerable to a storm or a stubborn high pressure and you will definitely have long days to get the racing in.

So I think the message is that if you haven't been for a long time you should probably give it another try. I'd suggest any class with a turnout of 30 or more has probably got the balance right for most of the time because if they hadn't the back of the fleet wouldn't go - the middle / back of the fleet is where your numbers come from, any established class con drum up 20 hot shots. But don't go expecting to launch at 11, land at 1 with regular precision every day - you can't even do that at Dinghy Week!

The Solo class sent out a Survey Monkey questionaire yesterday where we have been given a chance to voice our thoughts, hopefully MBSC and NSCA will get a chance to learn from the responses and move forward.

Not so sure about that lol 

At our club , my wife and I are the only people that have ever gone to a nationals and there only half  a dozen people that ever done a open meeting .

BUT I have still never ever heard anything like some of the opinions expressed on here at club level 

Do you want an echo chamber of like minded people confirming your biases? If you only let national attendees have an opinion your sport will soon disappear up its own backside… 

For my part I have been to about a dozen national champs, and generally I have enjoyed them but they nearly always fail to match the hype and the reports often seem to bare little resemblance to my own experience. A weeks annual leave and £1000 or so costs is more than many will risk. 

I get where H2 is coming from, there are a few people on this forum who come across as 'anti'  class racing, anti the established classes etc. So sl*gging off a 'nationals' is a big grin for them. I've done a few 'nationals' in my time, all in relatively high-end classes. Finished in the bottom quarter of all of them I think! Great learning opportunities. Great to have a week focused only on OD racing.Good times with good people. These days I am more likely to be on the other end of the starting cannon, so take a keen interest on other RO's challenges and mistakes in the hope that if we REALLY cock it up we will at least be able to claim something original. I have to say that Mounts Bay is top of the list of clubs I don't want to go back to, when it comes to caring about 'are we doing a good job for the paying competitors and giving value for money?' their attitude seemed to be the wrong side of Cowes Week. That plus it's 'high risk' in terms of weather, good chance of either being blown to bits or sat in the doldrums. There are reasons why people in Cornwall wanting regular racing tend to sail in/out of harbours or in bays not exposed to wind straight from America.   Like certain ponds inside the M25 some clubs only see visiting sailors as a cash cow. Other clubs are all about racing sailors wanting to reciprocate the hospitality they had elsewhere and put on an event that maintains or advances the host club's reputation. To be fair, class associations have a big influence too, the proper 'circuit classes' generally seem to have more in common between the hosts and competitors, because the hosts can at least remember being competitors.

TBF I thought it was a pretty stupid thing to say, I just didn't say it. I would say the same about A2Z's post too unless he's been to a recent champs and not enjoyed it - I find it hard to believe such a universally bad experience, though it isn't for everyone. What he doesn't see - and neither do you I don't think - is that if members clubs all get fed up of putting on events for very little return to their membership in either income or participation you are going to be left with about four venues to choose from.

Circuit, circuit, circuit & pathway, pathway, pathway is a very blinkered approach. You think the racing at your club is no good? Do something about it. Club doesn't want to know? Find another. 

If you don't promote racing at your home club don't come come complaining when clubs don't want to host you.

Not for the last couple of years for understandable reasons. But fairly regularly- which indicates I don’t hate them, or at least live in hope that the next will be better!  But my experience is that they are often/usually frustrating for one reason or another, and this Solo event is not that out of the ordinary.  I pick more selectively now.

As previously stated, the background to the event was the forecast of 15 to 25mph ENE winds all week, competitors did not appreciate that the North Cornwall coast sea breeze would cancel out the ENE, which is why the PRO was desperate to get ahead of schedule.

IMO £13,000 or £130/boat does not seem unreasonable, the boatpark facility was great, the club welcoming, the beach team raised the bar, the setting beautiful, plus drinks on the Mount.  Had the wind blown SW all week there would have been few complaints.  

Facilities like Hayling, WPNSA, Pwhelli may be able to offer perfect courses, but don’t have the soul of sailors clubs like Tenby, Abersoch, Tynemouth, Pevensey or Mounts Bay which are the ones I hope to return to.

I am a very  average sailer . I have had races at nationals and at my club that’s had me tearing my hair out and saying I will never get in a boat again . But I have never regretted going to a nationals or going to my sailing club.  

Some people need to lighten up a little and look at these things in the whole . Sometimes s##t happens but you don’t have to let it spoil your fun . And I for one really appreciate the fact people volunteer to run events so we can have fun .

No one's hiding behind the word volunteer, and I dislike that word.  Nearly all race officials are unpaid.

I'm a race officer and a judge.  I have put a lot of time and effort into obtaining qualifications and experience in those roles.  I don't get paid.  That doesn't stop me aspiring to do a thoroughly professional job of race management.  I think you can say the same for just about any practicing race official (with the possible exception of racers that are press-ganged into officiating on a club roster, and even then, they are probably doing the best they can).

There are a myriad of factors that can conspire to prevent a race officer doing a perfect job in any one race.  As one of my mentors is fond of saying every time we come ashore, "that's another one we got away with".  It takes very little for the holes in the swiss cheese to line up and, if you'll pardon me mixing my gastronomic metaphors, for things to turn to custard fast.  Sometimes if you're old and crafty and have a good team you can get the holes unaligned.  Sometimes not.

It's a lor easier to accept the shortvomings of amateur/volunteer RO's if you're being charged amateur entry fees. I think I'm a reasonably competentt RO, made all the mistakes already, understand what competitors want etc, but NO BLOOODY WAY do I want to take responsibility for an event where the entrants have paid top dollar in return for s free ticket to a (cheap)wine and snacks evening. I used to get a salary with higher rate tax in return fot that kind of responsibility. So for nuppence, you get people who don't place the same value on their responsibility to competitors. I'd rather do the grunt work of flags, buoys, anchors, typing etc.

There's a conversation needing to be had, what each person expects from the others in the ecosystem.

Are you from Worthing?

Did you mean WPNSa as distinct from Weymouth?

As for Hayling, vastly over-rated IMHO, have the Merlins forgiven them yet?

Terrible place, you might get a decent start line one day in a week when the tide happens to be slack.

How much do you think its costs to run a championships?

Any number you like, depending on how you choose to add it up.

You might include just the direct additional costs such as boat fuel and trophies.

At the other extreme, what the market will bear.

add in a bit of sponsorship and the entry fees are sure to go up!

Seriously, it's very variable, and it's not always clear where the money's going, between the host club, class association and any other parties such as the town council who may be charging for the sea front or whatever.

I've had some slight involvement with totally commercially run events. £500 a day for a staffed committee boat, couple of hundred for a mark-laying RIB.Our club boys get some free beer and food. They wouldn't be taking time off work to do it if the club wasn't doing well out of it.

Don't forget that there are more man hours of admin than racing, meetings between club and CA, entries to deal with, all sorts of preparation. Some stuff in both Club and CA is probably never really split between the champs and the rest of the year, much of it is never accounted for at all. Superficially, a champs is extremely good for our bank balance, but we can only do that once a year as an exercise in monetising the club's assets, very much including the human assets!. Either running a champs is part and parcel of the make-up of the club or it isn't and you can't create that from nowhere...

But none of that reduces the  need to give the paying punters good value. By the time the flags start breaking out, the costs are mostly fixed, the value is yet to be established.

What irks me is the perception that £250 entry fee is poor value, something usually put about by people who have more idea about whats under the surface of mars than they do about the amount of unpaid hours that get put in by volunteers. It doesn't excuse a poor reception from the club or poor race management (Though most potentially controversial decisions such as marginal days are shared with the association) but just think how much more it would cost if every volunteer charged minimum wage per hour - then tell me its poor value!

Be very careful where you go with charging for nationals, with a very few exceptions (mainly MBSC) the provision of National Championships depends on a symbiotic relationship between Clubs and Classes and the only way these events work is by the free provision of time by members.  If this goodwill disappears so will the provision of National Championship venues.

I PRO the odd regatta and after each event I consider how we could improve the delivery, I would be extremely surprised if any other PROs do not do the same.  I am pretty sure that all PROs come from a racing background and are driven by a desire to put back in what we have taken out, most successful dinghy racers I know pay an anal attention to detail, which no doubt extends to race management 

The amount of effort/time/cash that goes into something is no guarantee of it providing a given amount  of 'value' to the consumer.

If the experience of taking part in the racing is not satisfactory to the 'marginal' participants, they will moan and/or not cme back.  We all have a lor of choices as to how we can spend a few hundred quid and 'n' days holiday on our sailing. We can choose another class, do other events, spend it on coaching, buy a second boat, do a Nielsen holiday etc etc.

There is a huge pool of club sailors in the Uk who are not going to your Nationals because it's not what they choose to spend thier time and cash on. That's not a problem if you have a sufficient pool of happy Nationals entrants. But clearly a lot of classes are not really in that position.

Of course a lot of volunteers may be quite happy spending their time not adding huge value to the competion experience, because they are enjoying being involved with their club. If I do some washing up in the galley after the prizegiving, or help organise trailer parking that's not a cost you have to justify or account for. IF we had to pay everyone for every bit of effort, we'd have to use such resources more efficiently. What is the monetary 'value' of taking part in a Nationals? If you're coming in the top 3 and generating kudos for your sail loft, possibly it's a much bigger amount than if you're going to come in the bottom quarter, same as you did last time and the time before.Obviously the cost of taking part is more, sometimes very much more than the entry fee, but that fee is one of the first things people see when they consider an event. If you're getting irked by potential customers baulking at your price tag, it might be time for a quiet think about your market. If you charge Tesla money, there's no point getting upset when the Nissan Leaf pulls more punters.Likewise if I see the Fastnet Race costs too much to enter, no point me moaning, I'd be better spending my money and time elsewhere. They chose their market and it might not include me! I doubt RORC get 'irked' by me saying it costs too much.

Looks like they are doing their best to make the racing happen.

The risk of several days unsailable weather is something the ordinary amateur sailor needs to consider when assessing the value offered by a regatta. I suspect climate change is already making weather patterns less reliable. I believe it's been known for a Nationals to lose a day's racing, yet the little club just down the coast manages to run its evening races..

For sure, as a championship race, we need to feel it's not a complete lottery. Also as you say, it may take a long time to get a fleet afloat and ready to race, so it's not always easy to grab an hour's wind when it turns up. Whether I'd prefer to be afloat or ashore might depend on whether I'd spent the previous day ashore waiting and socialising, and what the prognosis was for tomorrow. It helps if the class has clear min (and max!) wind criteria and everybody buys into them. I feel it's increasingly often that the 'sea breeze' is called wrongly by 'experts' because e.g. 'we shouldn't have an Easterly this time of year'....   Also for club racing, we can set courses which take into account any tide, marks to STBD and dodging rocks to cheat the current might not go down too well among the elite?  :-)

Also championships back then were major occasions, reported in the broadsheets, now there is more of a lightweight fun atmosphere with a more organised social program (my first Merlin Champs social program read “Sunday night - Drinking, Monday night - Drinking, Tuesday night - Drinking” you get the picture).  

With the old format there was more opportunity for holding races earlier or later in the day, or doubling up following a postponement, whereas today it is accepted that you might lose a few races.

The modern format is probably more fun, though I wish race officers would be more prepared to pull up the hook to finish on a beat rather than the wretched reaching finish from the leewards mark.

1) there is an inevitable pump fest on the run into the leeward mark to get inside berth, since the race is pretty much over at this point

2) I challenge the RO to correctly call the finishing order of 100 white boats finishing on a reach

3) I am as guilty as anyone of the rather pathetic defensive manoeuvres to defend one’s position on the silly reach

A windward finish;-

1) puts greater emphasis on upwind tactics

2) gives the RO adequate opportunity to read off finishing numbers clearly

3) the committee boat needs to up anchor for either finishing method, so why not improve the racing experience for competitors.

On todays relatively small courses it takes little time for the committee boat to steam upwind, and typically less than ten minutes for the fleet to reassemble at the leeward starting area.  IMO the format is because of a desire to replicate current Olympic practice … but this is typically for 20 - 30 boats and is designed to satisfy television media.

Just after the Solos I had the pleasure to run two sets of three (starts) windward leeward races at sea, all races started in time, duration circa 50 minutes.  Committee boat steamed from leeward starting position to windward finishing position with 1NM legs, then back to restart.  All races done and dusted in less than three hours.  It can be done very easily.

P.S.  RO assisted in pulling up 60m of rope and chain four times 

At the event I ran we had windward leewards, start at the leeward mark, four laps displayed (never intended to be completed) shortened at the windward mark.  Simple, but we are constrained by a deep shelf at the edge of the race area.

50 minutes for the slowest boat?

5 minutes from class flag to start.

5 minutes to 'steam' 1 NM downwind.

sometimes it takes time to ensure the committee boat is settled on its anchor and you have a good start line. Sometimes you can't just park and be sure what the wind is doing.

3 x 50 minutes racing time within 3 hours is somewhere between aspiration and fiction.

I was lucky, I don’t for one moment suggest that I could do a better job than MBSC who had to deal with massive shifts, but I will stick to my guns that the effort required to provide a windward finish is only slightly more than the offset leeward, and probably only adds 10 minutes to the turnaround time.  

The time taken to set up the start line in shifty conditions will be much the same whatever the finish method.

With unlimited resources the committee boat can stay on station in the starting area, and a RIB can set up to shorten at the windward mark … which would be even better.

For a nationals with lots of boats you need a decent size course to be able to make it good quality racing and not just a corner banging fest to get clear air. To do this you'l run 2 laps or 3 if you're really short on space. 2 laps minimum because you want 2 beats and 2 runs, any less and you loose the ability to recover from a bad start. If you then wanted to add a windward finish to this you then have to add either a 3rd/4th upwind which then means either the course length goes down or the target time goes up. The latter of which actually take away from the quality of the racing because you'l then give advantages to those who are at the pinnacle of fitness rather than sailing ability. 

The other aspect of finishing to windward is the extreme difficulty of reading sail numbers. Starboard tack is fine but anything on port and you haven't got a hope in hells chance of reading them until they're past the line. You also can't foresee as easily who will be arriving first and can't pre-call the numbers meaning you're always chasing your tail and up sh*ts creek if you get a load of finishers at once (which will happen.) You're also blocked if someone tries to finish right under the nose of the committee boat. 

The advantages of finishing on the reach are massive. Boats in single file or no more than 2 a breast, you can call the numbers before they even hit the line, you can get the line tighter which means you can actually see your video afterwards, the sail numbers are always on display and it works for target times and appropriate course lengths. You also don't need to move the CV as long as the course has been designed well, only doing a gate start would you need to move it. 

Don't agree with finishing under S either for an event which is meant to be of any quality. You'l never know going down the run where you need to position your self. Imagine left was favoured for the next beat but you needed to set your self up for the port gate for the finish which may or may not happen. As an RO you're meant to give sailors options not lucky dips.

I get that a leeward finish is a necessity for back to back races. I agree about the pump fest potential, if you have a judge on the water this is where they where they earn their corn.