- The drive time / sail time ratio is silly. 24 hours of driving for 3 hours of sailing. Yeah, I know it was a record year, but still - I spent more time setting up / taking down the boat than I did sailing.
- The trophies sucked. For 2nd place on corrected time, I received a 2"x3" plaque that cost maybe $10. I'm not normally one to bitch about the trinkets, but those are not appropriate for an event that had 86 entries.
You should have gone this year if the "ratio" is important to you. We drove 750 miles and spent 7.5 hours in the race. BTW, we came a day early and sailed to Coney Island and back the day before. Plan to sail more than just the race and the "ratio" gets much better.
Un-beknownst to us, Northern NJ is very charming and has lots of neat things to see. Dashing in and out you miss much...at any regatta destination.
The trophies were great this year. Of course if you want a really nice one you have to do better than 2nd!
I travel to a lot of regattas - 750 miles is not out of the question for me on a weekend (Hobie MWE was over 1000 miles - left on Thurs, back to work on Monday). Because I do a lot of regattas, vacation time is at a premium (which is why I do stupid stuff like drive to FL for a weekend).
For the 2006 Statue Race, we drove to the event (650 miles) on Saturday, July 1 and set up the boats, raced on Sunday and packed up the boats, took the ferry over and toured NYC on Monday and drove home on Tuesday, July 4. I didn't use a single day of vacation to do the event, which was important to me.
Yeah, the first place trophy is nice, but it's a perpetual one that you don't get to keep. I hold the record for the fastest time of a boat under 20', but I got nothin' to show for it.
