Nationals and weekends

The duration of a championship depends on the class and how competitive it is. For instance, the Tornado class will limit their championship racing to 2 races per day and figure on an hour or so per each race. At most they will do 3 races…. (If its blowing… the crews are pretty much done after that anyway). One reason is that a breakdown could wipe you out of the event if 4 races were held. So, this means that your championship will get stretched out a bit to get 10 races in. This of course is very different from the attitude… get as many race in a day in as you can.

There is also some sociology involved in the week day championships. In order to make the event go… you need a core group of people willing to travel, since you have to collect them from all over the country, you give people the weekend to drive to and from the event. It takes a big commitment to do the nationals anyway and so the weekday schedule seems to work best for the most people of the core group that goes racing all the time. The 6.0 class has not had a class event in a while, so you probably don’t have that group of committed sailors to make a nationals happen.

Finally, there are issues of boat traffic in the racing area… if you tried to race in Annapolis on the weekend…. you would be fighting a lot of pleasure boat traffic. Moving to the weekdays gives you flat water and the bay to yourself.

You might want to use the Catfight Event as your 6.0 class nationals. It’s a three day regatta and it might serve the interests of the surviving class members who could make it to a more regional championship.