$234,000.00 Race Banking Details

I am beginning a new thread here on the following, I ask you to please keep your feed back to this only. I welcome your comments and opinions on it, as well if you believe this to be an acceptable format, I would like to see that here as well, even if it were as simple as a yes. If you do not, when posting please indicate any problem you see with this format, as well a solution if you have one to offer. thank you!

http://ca.geocities.com/sail.2007@rogers.com
In consideration of the feedback of concerns supplied by this site and others, regarding a safe, and satisfactory manor of collecting funds, managing those funds, disbursements of all Prize money, in relation to actual entrants of this event, and a decision be made to carry the event out, due to achieving the applicable numbers of more than enough interest. The following draft is proposed.

The Goal number of Interested parties is that of 200 interested parties, form completed, filed, reviewed as to authenticity, and accepted by our responding email stating so, which will include a reservation number, this number is important, as it is issued on a first come, first served basis. The offers to entrants are made in the series of order of these reservation numbers for the event itself. ( this completion of this form requires no deposit nor funds from an entrant what-so-ever, and is not binding upon submission to the Interested party). Any person or persons expressing an interest in the event but unsure of who his crew shall be at the time of filing the form of interest, is welcome to do so by placing the word or words "unknown at this time" in the appropriate crew information area (on the form), you may update this at later date, prior the decision to carry out the event. *Note* if you're reservation number is a number of 121 or over you will be placed in an overflow, you also will receive a notice to this effect.
The minimum number of Interested confirmed parties required in a successful decision to carry out this event, shall be that of 150 no less. The date upon which a decision shall be made to carry out the event is January 31st 2007.
No decision shall be made to carry the event out until the appropriate documentation on all 12" Ultimate 20 sail boats" is in hand. ( meaning no boats/no race)
On January 31st 2007 the decision will be made to hold the event providing the above has been met. A "official Notice of Race" will be posted upon a successful decision.
On February 02nd 2007 numbers 1 through 120 shall be sent a 72 hour notice of payment, requiring a 20% deposit be made to a credible bank of Canadian Nationality, the funds are in Canadian Dollars. Failure to do so shall mean your forfeiture to this event.
After the first 72 hour notice has expired, the balance of the 120 entrants required will be offered to those in the overflow, again with a 72 hour notice, these offers will equal that of the balance required. Step 6 will be repeated until such time as the 120 entrants is acquired, the entire timeframe on step 6 shall not exceed Seven days from the date of the First 72 hour notice. Should after this period expire the requirement of 120 entrants not be attained, all deposits shall be refunded by the bank forthwith to the entrants, as not to hold up these same funds for any length of time. Postage costs of the return, shall be deducted from that amount, should this apply.
Final Payment of the entrance Fee, must be paid to the Bank by May 15th 2007 at the latest 4p.m. eastern standard time. Failure to do so shall mean a loss of deposit, cancellations shall also mean a loss of deposit.
In any event of a cancellation prior the event, the overflow shall be re-opened to offer under step 6, as to acquire a replacement.

About the bank

An agreement with the bank shall be drawn up on all the above, and below as to provide a complete and detailed document and or contract on these guidelines, this same document will be posted on the web site and available for download, all details of the bank, their contact names, addresses, telephone numbers as it may apply shall also be made available, as to provide the entrant complete contact with this bank and that money held in trust on this event.

The organizer, organization(s), party(s) or it affiliates to this event, shall at no time have access to prize money collected, and will be reflected in the agreement.
A trust fund or account specific to the event shall be established whereby, the bank shall be both the administrator, as well the payer of all prize money on each event to the respective winners of that event.
A separate account being that of the working account shall be established for the organizer, organization(s), party(s) or it affiliates to this event. The Bank shall not release any money collected to this working account until the date of February 12th 2007, and only upon successful receipt of 120 entrants deposits. Upon this date 20% of the total deposits received shall be released to the working account. The 20% rule shall comply on all payments made towards the event fee's up until the date of May 16th 2007 where any amount owing the working account will be released by the Bank to the said account. The Bank Shall Retain entrust all prize money until such time as a winner is declared for each cash prize.

Paragraph 3 you state a minimum of 150 entrants and later it changes to 120. Is this a Canadian bank, a US bank or an international bank? Are currency exchanges an issue for deposit and refund?

Do the bank guards carry paintball guns or water balloons?

I bet they don't want water on anything! Maybe they use red balls to make it look real?

150 interested parties was stated
120 Actual entrants was stated
the two are different.
a credible bank of Canadian Nationality, the funds are in Canadian Dollars was stated.

Are currency exchanges an issue for deposit and refund?good point here I will also inclue this, currency exchange rates will be that of the current bank of canada exchange rate.

Isnt this a monohull event?

I vote to boycott sail2007 threads. If we dont respond, he'll go away.

Why wouldn't catamaran sailors be as interested as monohull sailors in doing a race of this kind? Good cat sailors can sail anything. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I have spoken briefly with Sail2000 about this event, he seems as if he has a genuine interest in putting it on.

I have no idea who he is, no idea if he could actually pull it off, but I hope he does.

Actually I hope anyone with a crazy idea that promotes sailing can pull it off. I like crazy ideas. The Worrell was a crazy idea.

There are so many threads on just about every sailing forum, on every sailing newsletter, and on just about every sailing website at one time or another that talks about how to increase participation. Then some guy steps up to try and do something about it, and so many feel the need to trash him.

Personally, I dont think your going to get 120 sailors, but I hope Im wrong. And if Im right, Ill still buy you a beer for having the balls to try.

No one bashed him because of his "crazy" idea. He was bashed because his process for getting funding, how the funds would be controlled and the vague process of getting boats didn't pass the smell test. He may be a stand up guy but he needs to learn how to set up an event that will have no questionable issues.

Thank you Brian for your comments here, I will see your beer, and raise you a second at my expense. And if It does happen, and will if those numbers are there, then I will pay for the whole bar tab,that we run up.

If I recall, the original intent was to solicit feedback on how to structure a cash prize race, not to get multihull sailors to enter (although I guess that would be a side benefit).

I'll say it's nice to see someone try to grow the sport, even if I may not agree with the method.

As most indicate, caution is necesary to ensure something like this doesn't end up as a black eye to the sailing community.

Save the big cash prize for next season (using the profits from this season). Have someone donate a new car to give to the winner this year instead.

Sail 2007

In place of using a bank, why not use Business Escrow Company, there are plenty of them out there that do transactions like this between the US and Canadian companies. With this, there would need to be a designated agent for the payee on both sides of the transaction and would require you and those that enter the race to establish a spending committee. Please note I commend what you are doing with trying to promote racing and get something going, but with all the scams out there people a very leery about send hard earned money off with not recourse.

Thanks great input here.


My Knowledge on Business Escrow Companies is very limited I admit here. My thoughts are that maybe this is common place in the United States. Do people trust a business escrow, over that of a Bank holding in trust, managing and administering under strict legal guidelines of use of these funds? In Canada its not all that common on escrows.

I am shying away from the whole escrow thing as I would like to stick with the knowledge I both know and trust, I have had in my past many courses on investment, as at one time this was my carrier, but honestly none of those courses or licences held had anything to do with escrows.

Also I have read that Mr. Worrell in his million dollar event, used this method, I am not sure what contributing problems he had with this, but one thing is certain people lost their money.

The funds as stated at my first thread here, are safe as the Bank itself handles the money, through contract following those exact guidelines above. I will upon my contact with the bank in drawing up those papers, ask the bank on the whole escrow thing, the laws in Canada could be different, or maybe this is the manner the bank will establish. I will post their response on it all.

Ok Guy's and Gal's

Its break time, I have been working 8hrs a day on my regular job, and up to another 8hrs on this, so my web guy sent me a stress relief in my email, I hope you find it as funny as I click below. you need sound.

chowmein joke

One of the series is reserved for Corporate Challenges, here is the details, feedback is welcome!

“Corporate Challenge Series”

Corporations are encouraged to take part in this event, posting a notice in their local offices. As to find staff experienced in sailing to sail on the corporations behalf. We suggest this done by posting a sign up sheet at your various offices. The event gains great exposure has an environmentally clean image to associate your business with, and builds good positive team effort to achieve an ultimate goal.

We further suggest any corporation participating in this challenge to send a written invitational from top level to their rival competitor, by way of friendly healthy good sport, to likewise participate. In thus the end result will motivate not only your chosen crews on the water, but as well within your corporate structure.

• Corporations must when registering for the event, elect the event series date of June 27th 2007 running to July 06th 2007, as these dates have been reserved exclusively for all corporate challenges.
• A Corporation, Business or Enterprise may only register one boat team in this event, the Boat will be supplied.
• Required are: One team Captain
Two Crew members
One Auxiliary Crew replacement
• The Corporation is required to pay the entrance fee for their Team; the fee is $2,800.00 CDN. Currency
• Each Corporation entering limited to 12 total, shall as means of sport event sponsorship be required to cover the costs of a spinnaker, this will be used on their boat and will display their corporate Logo. This spinnaker will be used throughout all the race series running summer long. The spinnaker will be supplied by the race commission as to keep within approved “one design” specifications.
• A Corporation may for their own purposes promote as they see fit in relationship to their company, e.g. calendars, photos, media exposure etc.

Prize Awards

Any Corporation upon entering this event must declare where it pertains to prize money, where if any winning are to be used, a Corporation may not however use winning for capital needs.

• A Corporation may distribute or disperse winnings in one or a combination of the following: Designated by percentages totaling 100 percent
• Donate winnings to a charitable organization of their choice.
• Recoup Costs associated with participating in this event, receipts required.
• Use winnings towards designated employee benefit gains. E.g. gym, outings, etc.
• Award the Corporate team a monetary prize.

You asked for feedback. Okay, I can't understand how you can tell someone, whether it is an individual or a corporation, what they can or cannot do with their prize money. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

The answer to this Mary is quite simple, an individual using their own funds to enter may upon winning, do with the prize money what they please. that's their choice.

A Corporation on the other hand, must follow in one form or another as prescribed above, or a combination thereof. In the form of Corporate Image they will be better off, so well the everyday employee of that company. I feel this to be fair. My Race, My rules, great feedback thanks.

Mark,
I was not being critical of your rules -- I meant my question very literally.

You might as well say, "My ball and I'm going home." There are many other balls available.

Seriously now - I really don't want to talk down to someone who wants to further the sport but I'm having a really difficult time reading the intentions of this event. The "My race, my rules" comment is brash and bordering on juvenile. It makes me wonder of what maturity the person is that is trying to put this race together and why...but I'll try to be constructive.

To better understand what you are trying to accomplish - WHY are you trying to put this event together?

A couple more comments:

+I think competing in a cash event and organizing it are 100% in conflict

+The suggestion to have an escrow company handle the funds is a good one. Do so with a defined committee and bylaws is the only way to handle people's money and ensure a degree of fairness to those people. The escrow company basically handles the issuing of funds based on a set of rules and requirements that both parties agree on (a contract). If one person in the contract fails to meet their obligations usually an alternate resolution would likely be predefined. You can draw up a contract that says the organizing body gets 10% of the race funds or a set figure or whatever...you can also guarantee that if a certain number of entrants aren't received by a certain date that the entire entry fee will be returned in full or in a certain percentage. The escrow company actually handles the funds and acts as an unconflicted 3rd party.

"My race, my rules" is a great way to ensure that you are racing alone.