Top dog

I have had two invites to go only went once as was working the other time now those boats are hard to set up if you dont have a clue about mast rake spreader angles and all that as with me i did not have a clue only after the saturday did one other guy help me set up the boat oh and also dont weigh anymore than 22 st max or like me and my crew at the time you will be too heavy

Originally posted by Tom J Or... don't wait for your class to receive the invite and sort it out yourself. The criteria for entry is that you are the world, european or national champion helm for your class and as far as I can tell after that it is pretty much first come first served. I don't know of any selection based on historical class attendance or fleet size. If you win the nationals then contact rcyc as early as possible and tell them you want to come. They will then notify you if you have a place.

Last year I phoned and E mailed the organisers and never got a reply. The Class took it up and we were I believe promised an entry for this year. The same sailor won the Nats again this year....and nothing. Believe me keenness and initiative was shown. I had presumed that with this years attendance being rather down on last years it had scuppered the entry. Anyway congratulations Simon on your entry and good luck.

Originally posted by Pabs Its obviously a southern thing and all to do with the north south divide or  maybe RCYC don’t know what a Byte and a Lightning is as they are probably a bunch of old Hoo Raa Henrys quaffing there rum by the yacht club jetty. I would love to see a response as to why they have not invited you after what 4 years of asking to go????? but as per every year they will not bother to respond... I do think the Endeavour is a great Idea but maybe they should get rid of the Champions of Champions and call it race of the selected few.

You're welcome to try and run something better.
Byte?
Lightning?

There's so many of these singlehanders.
Considering it's a competition run in 2 person boats, singlehanders are fairly well represented.
Perhaps you should look at running something in singlehanders.
Trouble is, only Laser could deliver enough matched boats, and nobody on here seems to like them ever so much!

Originally posted by patj In most classes to become National Champion you have to win a week or so of sea sailing, where often those who have supported the class throughout the year lose out to hot shots or pros who have borrowed a boat for the event to "tick a box" and won't continue in the class or even defend their title next year.   But what if the big week was the culmination of the year and to get the title you had to count your best of the year's results from the circuit, with so many sea events, so many big lake/reservoir and so many small lake or river events required (in a similar fashion to the Merlin Silver Tiller) plus inland championships, short course championships etc.   To gain the title would thus need a year's commitment to the class. How about it?

Unfortunately, only very few classes seem to have a meaningful open meeting championship series that can be mentioned in the same sentence as 'Silver Tiller'.
The RS400 circuit this year had a lot of entrants, very few people not counting a 'DNS' at the end of it.
Is that similar to other classes?
Having a self conained nationals works well for the 400, so long as Mr C keeps coming back to keep standards up!

People seem very keen to criticise the things that work well, rather than try to fix the things that are not working. If the problem is that circuit champions are not as regarded as nationals champions, try raising the quality and profile of the circuit rather than being dismissive of the nationals as 'just one week'. In my back of the fleet experience, it's usually quite a week.

Likewise, I think the Endeavour is a great event, albeit one I won't be invited to.
Remember it's run by a club and supported by Topper, it's not some official thing paid for by your RYA subs etc. The only status it has it what is has earned.