2006 Hobie 16 North Americans in RI

Mark you calendar: The 2006 Hobie 16 North Americans will be contested on September 11-15 in Narragansett RI, hosted by Hobie fleet 448 in Division 12.

Have a Hobie Holiday!

I've been waiting to hear it's official ! Yahoo what excitin news! Bad timing for my work schedule, but I'll have to find a way to be there for at least part of it. Do we actually have a site? Our Fleet's home at Quonset Point has been taken over by commercial interests, Mostly a parking lot Water access is harder and harder to come by these days. Anyway Hobie 16 Nationals in Rhode Island, this is very cool! Fleet 448 is a great group of folks if I do say so myself!

That is the week before the F18 North Americans.

Nice job.

Tracie

Who put coal in your stocking, Tracie?

There's not a whole lot of overlap in the classes, and if anybody was going to do both events, they are not that far apart that they couldn't leave the 16 event early Saturday morning and be in Lake Carlyle by late that night (it's 1,112 miles).

I'd do them both if I had the vacation time.

Which is why they should be farther apart. Do you guys look at other events when scheduling these things?

So the F18 class owns the month of September? Are you joking?

I wouldn't matter if they were months apart - I only get so many vacation days a year - which is the case for most people.

The HCA doesn't necessarily dictate the schedule, anyway. It depends on a lot of things, usually the availability of facilities and volunteers.

The vast majority of H-16 sailors don't sail F-18's. It's like complaining that the Sunfish NA's were scheduled the week before!

What about the A class sailors? How are they going to make the F18's or the H16's?

They are hosting their nationals in Bristol, RI the same week! (Maybe they should run a joint party ...40 men at the keg is not a party and does not compute!)

Conflicts like these are unavoidable. (Now events like Tiger north americans and F18 north americans scheduled together or in close proximity is just plain silly)

Given the amount of effort to host a week long event, the need for volunteers to run... and not sail the event and your desire to race during the best times of the year in the area given wind and hotel accomodations: Its rare to have more then one choice available. Conflicts are unavoidable.

It's tough but what could be done is to plan the class events three years out .. (at least by regions) and move them around the country to where you have a core of boats. Individaul sailors can plan and budget their time and money and sailors in similar classes can plan their programs as well. Most importantly, sailors in the region know that they are on the hook for organizing the nationals for their class. As it is now... the same small number of sailors pull off all of the events... It's great when some one else runs the party for you... but it's not fair and probably not sustainable.

Merry Christmas

Let me pose a question. If another Hobie class (for instance, the Tigers) was considering a North American event, would you schedule their nationals one week apart from the Hobie 16 NA's?

How about a real world example, Jake?

In 1994, the H-20 Nationals (St. Joseph, MI) and H-17/H-16 Women's (Syracuse, NY) were on successive weeks in September.

I did the scoring for the first and sailed in the second event. I had the vacation time then and they were "only" a 10 hour drive from each other. (BTW, I had a total blast at both events.)

Several people (Alan Egusa, Bruce Fields, John Bauldry that I can remember) did both events - and they came from the west coast.

Like I said, it's not like the HCA dictates when these events will be. Most event organizers tell the HCA when they can hold them. Rarely is there more than one group willing to host a particular event. If there is a major conflict, the HCA tries to resolve it with the organizers.

Sometimes it doesn't work out - even within our own classes. For example, the Tiger Worlds (in Cangas, Spain) next year are within a week of the Tiger NA's in San Francisco. Not a problem until you figure that to ship a boat to the worlds (even though it's free) will have your boat in a shipping container for two months in the middle of sailing season! The HCA is caught between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, we've got world competition; on the other, we've got the prestigious St. Francis Yacht Club willing to host an event for us (and they have a completely booked schedule).

We pointed out the problem for NA sailors when the dates for the Cangas event were announced, but it went forward anyway. The vast majority of Tiger sailors are European and we were outvoted.

Hey, it's Christmas, Knock it off! Remember that part about "Peace on earth, good will toward man"?

How about you argue about this tomorrow, or better yet, when you are at work, so at least the boss is paying you to do it...

I did get something black in my stocking - but it wasn't coal. It was a black nano IPod!

Matt, I am truly disappointed that yourself, and other 16 sailors who sail an F18 class boat; (one of which is our class' Northern Area Rep I might add)Tom Korz, Sue Korz, Steve Leo, and others will likely not be able to attend the F18 event because of this conflict.

Personally speaking, it is not about the numbers for me, it is about the sailors.

Yes, there will always be conflicts.

On another note; I contacted the HCA event organizer (Lori Mahoney) when we planned our date as we were concerned about conflicting with a possible event in the beginning on Sept. I was told that it looked like this event was not going to happen. So we announced our date.

We never got that courtesy email from the HCA.

I reached out first to try to establish some better communications.

The F18 class represents numerous sailors who sail different manufactured boats, including the Hobie tiger.

The HCA represents the Tiger sailors, many of which also sail in different Hobie classes.

It just makes sense to me to try and at least communicate a bit, you know?

Hope you had a nice holiday.

Tracie

The site is Roger Wheeler State Beach.

Bob,
Factory supplied boats or BYOB? Thanks.

BYOB

NOR will be out soon

I just wanted to point out that Lori Mohney is the HCA event coordinator that plans 8 Hobie North American Championships every year and also works with the Worlds event planners. It's difficult to not have conflicts among the Hobie Class,let alone other orginizations. The sailors mentioned have also sailed nationals, at some point, in all of the Hobie classes and have to make a choice even among those.The H17,18,20 classes have all struggled after the introduction of the Tiger and the growth of the F18 class as a whole. I would like to get a Tiger and do the the F18 nationals, Tigers,H14 and H16. But vacation time and money hold me and many others back. Lets remember that this is a hobby and the event planners of all types of boats have jobs and do the work as volunteers. Lori is about as nice a person as you will find and I'm sure she would have loved for everything to work out perfect.

Re: Mark Schneider's:

"What about the A class sailors? How are they going to make the F18's or the H16's?

They are hosting their nationals in Bristol, RI the same week! (Maybe they should run a joint party ...40 men at the keg is not a party and does not compute!)"

Sorry Mark. We're not the Laser or Finn class. Many of the guys bring significant others so we have a nice female presence at our social events and that includes three female A-class sailors (Pease, Carla, and Jennifer).

Bob Hodges
A-Class USA 230

Alright. I'm sure it will be a great event. My point is only this: The NAF18 organization tried to coordinate and schedule around other major events and we should all try to do this for the good of the sport. I don't see any evidence where HCA reciprocated the effort put forth by the NAF18 organization for scheduling 2006. The same scheduling issues arised with Spring Fever (F18 Southeastern Championships) this year and the Performance Nationals/Nacra F18 Worlds took place within a week of the F18 NA's as well. I agree that conflicts will often be unavoidable but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't TRY to avoid them. It would be nice if we could all come to the table together when scheduling these major things. Who knows, perhaps the NAF18 NA's could have moved a bit had the proper people been informed early enough - clearly it's too late now. I'll leave the thread alone now.

Perhaps the 'Notice of Race' Forum could be used to schedule future regattas in 2007? Rick?
Or, I wonder why all interested parties could not email each other? How hard is it now to find an email address, these days?

When we run a Nationals in Syracuse we have to do it after the county park closes(Labor Day). This leaves about a two week window to run an event. The event in RI is at a state park and may have the same issues. It can get real cold if you wait to long. Then everything looks like this:

It is unfortunate that two of perhaps the most popular championships in the US are scheduled for consecutive weeks. Having, or at least that opportunity for having, the maximum number of participants I'm sure was a foremost intention of both. Without the organization, hard work and commitment of a bunch of volunteers, who may be foregoing a chance to race themselves, neither one would be happening.

Thanks for bidding and Congratulations to Fleet 448 and Division 12!

That about sums it up

Seems like the biggest problem is finding suitable venues for the major events. And it also seems like the different classes are doing their own, separate searches for venues.

By sharing information, maybe venues could be used more efficiently to benefit sailors who want to race in more than one event.

For instance, you have Lake Carlyle available and the state park in Rhode Island available at about the same time. One is East Coast and the other is Midwest. Why couldn't the two events in question be sailed in back-to-back weeks at one of those venues in 2006 and at the other of those venues in 2007? And find venues farther west and south that can do the same thing in 2008 and 2009?

Each class would provide its own race committee people so it is not a burden on the local fleet or club.

The problem with running back-to-back events is getting enough non-racing volunteers. It's hard enough to staff mark and signal boats for one week, let alone two successive weeks.

At the H-17 NA's last year, every day started with the round up of the vic . . , uh, volunteers to go out on the water.

The H-16 and F-18 events are very do-able for the person who can get two weeks off from work and isn't afraid to drive 1,100 miles in one day with a double stack. Like I said, I'd do it in a heartbeat if I had the time off. It's really aggravating when work gets in the way of sailing.

Well, I was just thinking that each event is going to have to have its own set of volunteers anyway, wherever they are held. So why can't they do the same thing if they are at the same location -- the Hobie Class provide the volunteers, chase boats, etc. for the Hobie 16 regatta and the F18 Class provide their own set of volunteers and equipment for the F18 regatta?

Another possibility is inter-class cooperation as far as running the races if they are in the same location. Maybe a few people from each class could switch roles -- some Formula 18 people could help on race committee for the Hobie 16's, and some Hobie 16 people could help with race committee for the Formula 18 regatta.

Also, it would be nice if we could get some of the non-sailing wives involved in race committee work, especially if they are accompanying their husbands to the events anyway.

Maybe we should be thinking of ways to make race committee work more appealing -- like giving diamond earrings to the women and GPS units to the men.

I don't know how many people have the stamina or desire to sail two national championship weeks in a row, but there would probably be more if they could have a few days of R and R in between events instead of having to pack up and drive for 20 hours to get to another location (not to mention the additional gasoline cost).

Also, there are some hard-core racers who don't mind driving long distances with double-stacked trailers. But there are lots more who won't do that. I don't think the measure of a person being worthy of sailing in national championships should be their willingness to drive long distances with boats double-stacked. We need to make it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to participate in as many events as possible.

I'm just brainstorming a little bit here.