Solo Nationals

Originally posted by Rupert

Originally posted by Rupert

Originally posted by A2Z

In my experience national championships are nearly always less enjoyable than they could be.  Days lost to fog, storms etc, hugely long race days waiting for the wind to arrive/settle and start lines an hours sail away, trying to cram races in up front for fear of a poor forecast in the second half (or not cramming them in early on and hardly getting any racing completed), races scheduled for launching with unusually high or low tides, no time for enjoying a holiday with your family etc.  I’ve had bad experiences from Hayling Island to North Berwick, Brightlingsea to Looe.  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'd love to shoot this post down, but I can't.  I never really enjoyed the sailing at big Nationals. The parties, yes. Small scale events I find much more fun on the water  and these days better for my liver on the land.

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!