Ah Trophies!
What a pain in the butt! CBYRA (our big boat organization) allows their clubs to absolutely require pre registration by Thursday and then they mail the skipper his silverware (often weeks later)(LICSA also does this) This is probably the way to go... but... we don't … so here is what we do.
CRAC, WestRiverSA and Hobie 54 consult tea leaves and the vapors to make the proper number of trophies ahead of time. Basically we order trophies three deep for any class that we "think" is going to post with 5 boats.... We make this prediction weeks ahead of time due to the lead time needed to get trophies made.... or at least nice trophies. Frequently... only three turn up... So... what are we going to do with the bought and paid for trophies with include event dates ... (I have a crate of unused trophies in the basement and I don't want any more clutter...)_ So we award the trophies we ordered!
Yes... I think its not fair to award three deep in trophies to a class of three boats as we did for this year's C100.... but on the other hand... maybe it's an incentive for people to go racing. Two weeks down the road... who remebers the regatta details and who really cares about it anyway. I don't have a real answer.
A bigger PIA is the shipping of trophies that are not picked up at a regatta. Once an event is over... your energy level is close to zero... Ordering trophies, Mailing trophies... God for bid, reordering trophies because you are short a few, writing a decent race article, Thank you’s and acknowledgements, Posting the results on the Internet and forwarding them to Darline MUST be easy or it won't get done. Using Sailwave goes a long way to solving the scoring issues... but ordering, packaging, and mailing trophies (who has the address) is still a couple of hour job and costs bucks. As the saying goes… Old news… is No news… well the same with trophies… Nobody seems to care about a trophy 3 weeks down the road.
We attempted to save trophies and re use them from year to year... however... Nobody wanted to store them for a year... and secondly... they seemed kind of musty to reissue for next year's regatta.... People sort of expect something a little different.
To answer your question directly.
In the Mid Atlantic. We can get at best 20 to 25 of the following boats Hobie 18, 20 Tigers, Nacra, I20', 6.0's F18's, Prindle 19's. and Tornado's and F18HT's... All of the Prindle 16's are locked out ofof most of the Hobie regattas because they slow the open class start down too much. These guys don't race any longer (they don't like long distance races either). The low turnout will be 10 to 15 of all kinds as we saw at Barnegat Bay.
My personal approach for the C100 was:
Skipper only 30 dollar trophy three deep for two divisions. Spin and Non spin. This was a miss.... I had only 5 boats in non spin.. and should have gone 2 deep there and at least 5 deep in Spin. I purchased cheaper trophies for skipper and crew for 3 one design fleets and one open fleet eg… the left overs… based on the expectations of the de facto local fleet captain 4 weeks before the event. Only one of these captains could not get a good turnout of 5 or more boats. These trophies were three deep skipper and crew and about 10 bucks each.
Each race team will value these two trophies differently… One design guys have told me that this combined scoring is completely irrelevant to them and they look at other boats they are ostensibly racing as speed bumps to be avoided. Other skippers simply want to measure themselves against the local rock star and what matters is where they rank overall.. To each their own.
In the end, I think that awarding three high quality trophies skipper only to the combined open class will go along way to making this race worth something. I would base my best guess on a one design class turnout on my best read of past history and err on the side of more trophies awarded then less (This is the normal process.) The schedule that Hobie suggests seems fine. I would award the Open (or left over class) trophies at the same rate as a one design fleet. I would definitely award skipper and crew and I think that’s more important then the overall quality. Personally, generic trophies with no event or date are worthless to me.. Also…. it helps if they are attractive to display… otherwise they sit on a table for a few weeks and then get tossed into a drawer.
In practical terms... Scoring the regatta the way I suggest is simply a matter of taking times for all of the fleets in the larger open class start. Purchasing three additional trophies.... Each club can decide how much they want to spend and using sailwave to score overall and within fleets.
Splitting Spinaker and Nonspinaker fleets goes a long way to making the racing more fair... but this depends on turnout so make your best call and go for it.
Well, the rain has stopped so I can get some errands done.
Take Care
Mark
