Sailfest Calshot

At the risk of being flamed for daring to comment, seeing that I was actually there (but definitely not spectating....) I don't think that those who didn't attend understand what they missed. But first, I had no say in any of the organisation, I'd just been parachuted in as RO. As there was an Event Director and a full on Safety Officer (who did a great job in some testing conditions) I was pretty much in the situation of 'doing as I was told'. What became clear in the first 5 minutes was that instead of a multi-activity weekend that included some sailing, SailFest had morphed into a 3 day weekend of serious sailing. This prompted me to make some quick fire changes; I sent the handicap fleet away first, so the D-Zeros, having a Championship, could enjoy a clean and uncluttered start line. On the Sunday - which was a long day for all, I kept one fleet ashore whilst I raced the other. This mean that the D-0s could enjoy some full on sailing - in breezes that swung a bit, but as I'd warned in the briefing, contained some fruity increases in pressure. We had General Recalls, Black Flag starts (and yes, Russ H, you will go down in history as the first black flagged D-Zero; I might have turned a Nelsonian blind eye to marginal infringements but being able to see the pin over the back of your boat left me no option. But thank you for being so sporting about it! As you said, you knew you were in trouble and you were!!)
Just as the D-Zeros were being given a masterclass by Dan - if you want to know why he was so strong, you only had to watch him come off the line, it was a real pleasure to be able to sit and see that, over in the handicap fleet the quantity did nothing to spoil the fact that everyone was having FUN! If bribed, I could always put up the audio file that recorded one of the starts when there was a Finn father and son fracas on the start line. This was not a Clarkson Top Gear 'Fracas' of handbags at dawn, but an exchange that was loud enough to make it onto the voice recorder on the Committee boat!! I was very mindful of the course laying, on the top and bottom reaches of the trapezoid course (with an outer w/l loop) the good guys could fly their kites - but it was a close call. Those that could did and profited....
As the weekend entered the third day, the naysayers thought that there would be no racing but they'd be proved wrong - both fleets ended up with 8 races in the can.
The biggest winner in all of this were the sailors - from both fleets. I don't think we saw anyone who was not grinning from ear to ear at some point in the weekend.
More importantly was the situation for the D-zeros. Rather than have their Championships shoe-horned into the existing event, their racing became very much the primary focus of the whole 3 days. Make no bones about it - this was as much a serious championship event as many of the top established classes could ever hope for. Would it have been better at W&PNSA, where there is more space? No, my best feel for the weekend is that SailFest and Calshot divvied up a stonking event that will take some matching. We could easily have had bigger courses, but that would not have made for a better event for 2/3rds of the sailors. We kept it tight so that whereever you were in the fleet, you were slugging it out for position.
Nit pick all you like, or act all superior and continue the negative comments..... but Sailfest delivered, for both fleets. The right sailors won (in both fleets) and my gut feel is that if you had said to anyone there "would you like to come back and do this all again next week" the answer would be an unqualified YES.
From my perspective - I was proud to have been a part of what was that 'first championships' for the Devoti boats - I've been RO for so many events going back 30 odd years now (as was pointed out to me by someone sailing a ******* who recognised me from running Laser 2 events in the early 80s) and I'll be RO for many other Championships, but there will not be many that I'll talk about with such pride. Well done to everyone, both fleets, the 'team afloat' but primarily Simon and Claire for pulling it all together. Whatever they do in 2016 and where ever, it's worth putting in the diary.
Dougal (now famous for black flagging Russ if nothing else!!) - and the rest of the SailFest Race Team afloat.

Edited by Dougaldog - 26 May 15 at 12:46pm

Believe me I am very glad that sailors enjoyed the event but our little class preferred to go elsewhere for Nationals this year. I rather hope that Dougal was not digging at me as a non sailor in these events. I hope I always make my position clear.