Tradewinds Story and Pix Up

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Rick

Thanks for a great weekend, Rick. Really enjoyed it and it was a pleasure meeting you.

Great location and great event.

But what happened to the avg scores for not being able to sail on Monday?





Here is a Flyer and NOR:
OVERVIEW OF THE NAMSA NA's & MIDWINTER NATIONALS:
(If you are unable to make the racing on Saturday or Monday, we will take your average scores for the balance of the regatta and apply those finish position to your Friday finishes)

anyone have contact info for the two N20 teams that sailed the event?

Are they "local" (southeast US)?

With those two teams and the 5+ teams in FL, there's a pretty decent dead-boat fleet if they all figured out which events to sail...

One is a hybrid Ocean Springs, MS / Detroit, MI team (boat in MS)...the other was a Canuck team. Check your PMs.

Not a Canuck team, a NJ team and they now own an f18 but I think their 20 is for sail

Hey Rick, thanks for the nice story and all the pictures.

Mike, despite agonizing how that could be done, I saw no way to do it, so it was not planned to do.
Losing 16 boats on the last day has me thinking. Perhaps we should reschedule to the weekend prior to the A Class, ending on Sunday, ergo we can use the absentee Friday deal
Should the A Class ever decide to give up there Wed layday and end on Thursday, that would be the only way to do it.

(in that case, this probably shouldn't be in the NOR).

Spring Fever just averages your scores for the races on that day that you can't make. Score a 5, 10, 5, 10, 5, 10 on days 1&2, get a 7.5 for the rest of the races on day 3 (or Day 1 - whichever was the published "option day".

I don't think the low turnout on Monday was due to the scheduling. I think a lot of people were afraid of bobbing around waiting for the wind. we could have gone out but didn't think the wind would be there. We chose poorly..

+1

When Rick reported that it was 8 at the committee boat I was sure his pants were on fire, but we went out anyway. It was nice to see the breeze, it wasn't 8 but it was there and building. We actually had the best wind of the weekend on Monday.

You should have sailed Mike. You might want to check the fine print in the Spring Fever NOR, if you want the optional scoring you have to declare which days you are sailing when you register. This prevents someone for looking at the conditions on any particular morning and deciding it would be better to take the averages rather than sail in conditions that don't work well for them. There is always a catch.

Just had lunch with Mike and discussed. Totally agree that you would have to declare ahead of time.

yeah, I was getting that feeling on the beach when I was taking the boat apart

Although the sailing Monday was really nice and the venue was off the chain it wasn't my favorite part the of the weekend. The hands down highlight was when our red headed Candian friend gave Ricky a new nickname that he absolutly HATES! I promise to only use it when you really deserve it Ricky. For example when you start taking sh!t at 'A' mark or any other location on the course. Oh yeah, another reason why racing in light air sucks... Ricky won't STFU.

Do tell. I'm OK with "Ricky" going to the dustbin as long as the new one irritates the shite out of him. Chris was funny pickin' on him Thursday night also.

+ another one

Rick: great event, FANTASTIC Venue

A quick note for you from a team that travels far for the event (from Canada), PLEASE keep this a three day event. Long travel really isn't worth it for a 2 day event.

A note about the monday (which all others here have made). A LOT of teams woke up to see glass, even at 8 am. Given the forecast for the day was 2 knots, I think a lot of people made the early call to pack it up, even though RC had decided to run races. I know the RC made the right call, wind came in, etc. But I wouldn't read as much into the lower number on Monday, IMO it had to do with waking up to 0 knots, and a forecast that had 0 knots. I for one learnt my lesson, plan on going out no matter what ;-) To be honest, the RC had a tendency to overstate the wind speed all weekend so there may have been a "trust" factor when they said they had 8 (top of the mast maybe?)... Anyway, lessons were learnt and the RC was very very forgiving with "late starters", overall great job which got better as the weekend went on.

As for the "missing day" scoring, just have the team indicate on registration the first day of the event if they had to miss a day, and thats that. Avoids "last minute drops".

Side note: you can tell Chris doesn't have much hair when you guys call him a red head canuck! I've sailed with him my whole life... he's no ginger, that was just his burnt scalp shining through ;-)...

Sorry Todd you chose to to sail the A cat event instead of tradewinds, that's the price you pay. Plus the fact your F18 is for sale does not sit well with the families.

+another: for waking up and seeing glass, thus calling it a weekend. I did not help that we (and others) were hanging hard from a fun night of watching football at the Ocean View. I know others who saw the same thing and decided to enjoyed other things to do on a very beautiful day in the keys.

It was not Monday you were up against, it was a gorgeous calm day in the Keys that was to blame.

I say do have it on the same weekend, with the MLK Monday.

We had the breeze. At the rate I'm going the A will be for sale to.

So, I guess I am hearing keep it MLK weekend Sat thru Mon. That is what is presently on the schedules and the ads
Any feed back otherwise, let everyone know your thoughts.
Rick

MLK weekend works for me, I'll be back.

If I could land on a boat, I'd be there whether it was Fri-Mon or any combination thereof.

Was there room/opportunity to set-up/sail on Friday this time? Or was that interfering with the A-cat week?

MLK weekend worked well, I have a sneaking suspicion the smaller overall F18 fleet may have had more to do with "still paying the tab for the worlds" then anything else... I know a few teams that normally come that did not due to recovering from the cost of going to Cali.

Perhaps a surveymonkey survey could be sent out to all that registered... Generally Rick: great event, as usual, better venue then before. Just have some more active mark / start line adjustments on the F18 fleet next time ;-)

Thanks for all the work,
-P

We arrived late Friday ~3PM and by that time it looked like all but a few of the A-cats were long gone.

Jay the place is freaking huge!!! I think we'd have to have 150+ boats before you'd even start to feel crowded. With that said we are planning on getting there on Thursday next year.

no setup problems. There is a ton of room at the Islander. Launching was no big deal either.

I'll second the notion of encouraging race committee to tighten things up on making course adjustments sooner and more expediently (for instance, moving a-mark after the last boat rounds the mark and not waiting for everyone to completely finish)...having the first two starts with the wind nearly parallel with the start line got me a little frustrated. But, then again, I didn't exactly have my A game on that weekend...so, ... meh.

I got down there Thursday night and set up and sailed Friday, as did lots of others. There's plenty of room for both the A cats and all the Tradewinds boats at their huge waterfront area.

As for 'better', on shore it's definately a better location, but out on the water?

I prefer the other side due to the lack of chop with an onshore wind. The bay side stays pretty flat no matter how much wind, but it has a lot more crab pots to avoid going downwind fast, so I guess it's a tradeoff.

Which is worse? Chopp and Waves or Crab Pots?

Rick, just wait until a few days prior, and then schedule it for the days with the best wind.

;^)

We should incorporate a small distance race from the Islander around the lighthouse ... once or twice around depending on wind.

if Friday's not a huge issue, then why not a 4 day event? 1/2 day sailing on Friday (pm) and Monday (am)?

Then, you could have some additional flexibility if any of the days have bad weather (heavy or nonexistent wind). And throw in that "average score" thing for those who can't make the early (Friday) or late (Monday) session.

But it does add more logistics costs... So maybe fun races or a distance thing on Friday?

I think a lot of Florida people might have to work Friday, and drive down after work, so...

But Monday is a Holiday, so most are off.

so you'd only need one day off (Friday) if you were within a 12 hour drive of the place, right?

Who gets MLK holiday off? I'm pretty sure it's limited to banks and gov't employees.

Rick thanks again for organizing this, great venue and great regatta overall. I think I'm on at least 6 or 7 years in a row and it's big commitment from up here!
Jake, I get MLK day off and I'm in the marine industry. I think it's just more common in the North... hmm.
As I mentioned, great job by everyone but I'd like to point out a few issues I had heard numerous others mention but didn't say anything on here.
1) Entry fee spike - Last year was what, $65? A $40 increase? I was really surprised by that.
2) RC seemed to lack confidence, I couldn't believe it was the same RC as last year. For instance,
-starting a race with a extremely unsquare line in numerous races and not postponing to restart. There were at least 3 starts you couldn't cross the line on starboard.
-not calling a race where the windwark mark and the leeward mark were basically one tack fetches.
-sailing us in extremely light air to a point it was unfair racing
-Waiting for all boats to finish before starting the sequence, we wasted lots of time watching boats finish in other fleets while our fleet had been finished for a long time. The whole point of a separate finish line is so you can start before all boats have finished isn't it?
-Upwind offset, most of the regatta we had to sail upwind and some even had to tack to make the offset. This is pointless and also requires us to raise our chute while still going upwind and can easily tear the spinnaker.
-Moving the pin after prep flag up. We watched the pin being moved to 3:30 prior to the start on one occasion. Start should have been re-done.
-One complaint I heard but I disagree with is starting on time on Monday with less than half the fleet. I don't have a problem with the RC starting without everyone there on Monday, it was our fault and I actually think it was a good move on their part for starting on time.

Overall, we come a long way for fair races, no one (except maybe whoever is in the lead) will complain by calling off an unfair race even well after the start. It needs to be done!
Again, I apologize for highlighting the negatives but there were certainly a ton of positives. I know it was shifty and light but I'd certainly like to see a more proactive and confident race committee in the future.

hah...yeah, having MLK day off became a huge ordeal for our city workers a few years ago. Jesse Jackson even made some noise in town.

Reply on the entry fee.
Last year was $85, so a $20 increase as a result of a $1k loss of my personal funds to run the regatta. Love the regatta, but don't think I should have to pay for it from my Roth IRA.

Was there a shortage of T-shirts this year?

And the 47%...

So let's call it "47% day" ?

I thought the 47% got every day off, right?

;^)

I think that's 41%.

That's not what Mitt said.

Just to parrot others, it needs to be a three day event. It's 1800 miles for me one way, and a two day just isn't worth blowing two grand on fuel, and burning up a pickup that I can't replace to do it.

I wish I could've made it this year, stupid work, it ruins everything fun.

Rick, fair point on the entry fee. Maybe I was thinking Steeplechase for the lower entry fee. Sorry it's been a financial struggle for you, I hope this year was better.

Small note: 100 bucks for a three day regatta is normal and very acceptable, I would argue add another 20 bucks and include the second t-shirt for the crew. Until Rick starts rolling up in a fancy car with lots of bling, I trust he isn't trying to make a dime :-)

I'll +1 all that wildtsail7 said, but emphasize that a lot was done right as well.

Thanks Rick and company, see you all next winter.

I've struggled through a few buoy races (T-winds / Eustis) where the shifts were huge, and we ended up reaching to A mark more than once.

But yes, it's hard to score those as official results when it wasn't really a W/L course

We all can't be winners, Ricky

When bad shifts happen, the RC has four basic options (all valid, this shows up on NRO exams, and you are expected to list the pros and cons of each):

Abandon

Shorten

Change

Do Nothing

The last one often eludes people, partly because it isn't in the rule book, and partly because sometimes it's tempting to do whatever you can to try to fix everything.

However, sometimes, trying to fix a bad situation only makes it worse. This is especially true with multiple fleets, handicap races, unprepared mark boats ("We don't need all of those flags on every boat"), etc.

Mike

I'm just happy there's a PRO/ RC out there in the first place...

I'll let you rock stars go sit through protest committees and second-guess the RC.

It is difficult to adjust a course for shifts during the race when there are 4 classes on the course and all overlapped. Easily done with one class.
Donita did a great job in general. The offset was controlled by a volunteer from CABB, who is not a big time racer, and I believe we got his offset corrected to be slightly deep reach.
On the start mark being moved, Donita asked for the adjustment after the warning and before the Prep. Should have been done before the warning. My fault.., I would not have touched it had I seen she was already in sequence.
Just let you suffer. ha ha
Rick

Looks like we will keep it a three day, for sure, and be able to preseleect your missing day, should you not be able to be there the entire regatta.
Remains MLK weekend Sat thru Sun, until or unless the A Class no longer ends on Friday
Rick

Rick, did you mean; Sat thru Monday? Or are you considering Friday-Sunday if the A cats are done by Friday?

How about Friday (afternoon) thru Monday .... we can leave the course in place from the last A regatta and get a couple of races in on Friday afternoon ... since they A guys will not start a race after 1 PM so as to pack up and depart. we could easily get off 2 races in the nice afternoon breeze!

More racing for Brogger

Why the mad face Terry?

I'm thinking out loud before my brain really processes here...but what about a shortish distance race(ing) friday?

Thought it was an evil grin .... no disrespect intended ... now go back to building cabinets.

A run around molasses reef tower and back would be fun.

Maybe twice depending on the wind.

uh, there's no reason you COULDN'T do that.... are you proposing to make something like than an 'official' race?

I can't imagine you couldn't arrange an impromptu distance thing among the early-arrivers...?

As part of the three day event.

wait, you've already got the three (technically 2.5) day event (Sat-Mon). this would be an extra .5 day (Friday pm)

Fri distance, Sat buoy, Sun buoy...go home Mon.

I wouldn't want to give up the day of buoy racing.

Me neither. Half day distance race on Friday, got to set it up and shake it down anyway, good time for that in the afternoon. Put beer in a power boat at the light house, for the ride in.

3 days buoys, Sat-Monday. If you must go home and miss Monday, just say so in the registration, and use your average scores for Sat-Sun.

Oh, and have 2 shirts for the 2 up boats at registration, not "Come back when it's over and we'll see if we have enough for you..."

Do double-handed teams pay a higher registration fee?

Yes, but only get one t shirt. Why the extra money I'm not sure, there were no meals served, unless I missed that.

i can see why the "come back later if we have any left" thing... no telling who will actually show at a regatta, and you don't want to overstock SWAG.

Too bad no one seems to want to pre-register online (or even worse, pre-pay for a regatta). I suspect that doing so would solve a lot of issues for the PRO (events, sponsorship, meals, swag, support boats, budget, etc)

+1

Friday Distance Sat-Mon Buoys

like, a REASONABLE distance thing.... that solo teams could feasibly complete without serious concern for life/health

Not like a WPB and back run in light air...

How far was that lighthouse you were talking about?

Not far. And the only single haded guys were the 4 A cats, I'm pretty sure they can handle it.

I don't know, I'm kinda a puss-pop.

about 2 miles (each way) ... so maybe we need to do 10 times around

Well...the good news is, it was so light this year, next year we should get some wind, right?

Or, should we blame it all on Obama?

No Patriots in the Super Bowl??

Thanks Obama!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoiZPyrVWuI

As a Pats fan my whole life, back to Schaefer Stadium, Raymond Berry, Steve Grogan and Mosi's Mooses (not to mention enduring the abuse from the entire population of my school, who rooted for teams that won, such as Miami, Dallas or Oakland); I put the blame this year squarely on Brady and Belichick. As if punting in Baltimore territory wasn't bad enough, throwing the ball away on 4th and 4, while down by two touchdowns in the final minutes of the game, with an open field in front of him, no less, just screamed that he was ready for golf...

Well, I'm sure Giselle will just throw the rest of the team under the bus again to make him feel better.

As if losing two Super Bowls to the Giants (yes, I'm blocking out McMahon and the Super Bowl shuffle idiots), Brady bailing on Bridget with his kid, and Spygate weren't enough cause for embarrassment.

It was almost easier to be a fan when they totally sucked...

Mike

You know the NFL Playoffs are as 'fixed' as any WWF match, right?

Nobody wanted to see another Super bowl with one of the Mannings, or Rogers, or Brady or Drew in it.

The NFL is an "Entertaiment Provider" just like NASCAR. They know if only a couple teams are always at the top, people stop watching.

Bring on the High Drama of the Harbaugh Brothers Bowl!

PS, my Dad had season tickets to the Boston Patriots, back when they were playing in Harvard Stadium, with Joe Kapp slinging it. Those were some cold cement seats! He couldn't give the tickets away so he made me go to watch them lose.

The Boston Patriots of 1970 were a poor-performing team and the late-arriving Kapp played poorly himself that season, leading the team to the league's worst record at 2-12. When the year ended Pete Rozelle demanded that Kapp sign a Standard Player Contract. After conferring with his lawyer and the NFL Players Association, Kapp refused to sign a new contract.

With the top pick in the 1971 NFL Draft, the Patriots selected a quarterback, Jim Plunkett of Stanford. Kapp reported to the newly-renamed New England Patriots' training camp in 1971 and was turned away. The headlines in the Boston papers read “KAPP QUITS!”. After this incident Kapp never played again, his 12 year career as a professional football player was over.

The A's race on Fri. and have for the last 7 or so years. Pretty frickin' presumptuous to expect them to change their schedule because Tradewinds got the boot at Founders and now "likes" it at the Islander.

Thanks Rick for organizing the event but at one point on the 16 course you could lay the line to A mark right of the line on port. Also as we were on the layline to A mark it was moved. Same thing also happened with C mark. Also the courses where pretty short. It took us 18 minutes and 33 seconds to do the 4x. Lastly how come every single race we did that weekend was a 4x?

One at a time:
1. Friday Racing: Pretty sure we would not be welcome to have races in the afternoon. Perhaps an unofficial romp to the lighthouse and back with a start finish of the end of the pier would be OK. But Dennis was pretty adamant about keeping the A Class area free of us. Don't think that will change any.
2. Costs and Ts: As I had mentioned before, last year I lost $1k personally to put on the regatta. Lots of costs involved. At founders the dockage for the mark boats killed us and T shirts is one of the most expensive items on the expense list. Most regattas give one shirt per boat. If you want two, you would need to buy it.
If you would preregister, you could ask for an extra shirt and even pay for it online, and many did. That was why we only gave shirts to the preregistered boats first, and for those that paid for extra shirt were give the second shirt at registration. No one had to come back, if they preregistered.
3. Wind Shifts and Marks: Indeed it was shifty and I am aware of the mistakes made on the Orange Course. I tried to monitor both courses, but when the big shifts hit I got too busy on the Yellow Course to help Warren on the Orange.., and indeed he did make some blunders.
I reviewed the errors on the Orange Course with Warren and hopefully, if he is again the PRO, he will not make them again.

best strategy for online pre-reg, free swag / cheaper price... works every time

Also, just wanted to thank you again Rick, amazing event that we try to do almost every year, all criticism is to help improve the event, not knock it.

understand

It's why I keep putting this event on my schedule every year... and moreso if I get a boat of my own...

Rick, Glad to see you are addressing the Race Management issues on the orange course too. We brought 6 teams from SHBCC in New Jersey and I personally love the venue and certainly vote to keep it a 3 day event, However,there were a lot of issues with the orange course, some of which have been mentioned already but I wanted to add a few more in case you did not hear about or see them.
1) As mentioned, two marks were picked up and moved during a race while we were on the layline to the mark. No change mark flag was ever used.
2) Also mentioned, Only 1 course (4x). Why not use the standard courses? There is a lot of history behind the current course cards that provide more competitive racing and allow the race committee to adjust the length of a race appropriately. The course that was set on Sunday was more like a Rick White training seminar. It is ridiculous to run 20 minute races with 6 legs (3 minute legs). The short course also put the S/F area right on the layline with a ~40 ft boat as an obstruction in the middle of the course. Tactically speaking, the B mark should not be in the first downwind leg. Give the sailors a chance to split in the first leg.
3) I'm all for starting races on time (even though I have a reputation for being late) but on Monday there was only only 1 boat actually in the starting area. It is well documented that the wind was nonexistent and not forecasted to come up so most people were caught by surprise when the wind came in. Wait another 10 minutes to let the fleet get on course. We all came to play, and it won't kill you to wait 10 min. Communicate with people on the beach. Let them know you are planning on starting. The wind was very light and it takes a long time to get to the course and the RC should be aware of that.
4) Shorten Course Flag. The last race on Sunday should have been shortened long before it finally was. And, as you know, was done in an "interesting" manner when it finally was finished (ie, no flag and a motoring boat).
5) I suggest using a different color or shape for the short mark for the Waves. A gate would be nice too but I can live without that if the B mark is not in the first downwind leg.

On a positive note, the RC did a great job of getting starts in. We did not wait at all to start the next race. Also, the guys from SHBCC gained a new appreciation for how good our race management at SHBCC is.

[/quote]Also, the guys from SHBCC gained a new appreciation for how good our race management at SHBCC is. [/quote]
+1