If we are to keep good publicity for 12s in Y&Y then we need at least 15 entries for an event (or maybe we just make up the names???) - see article on the web and a note below. How do you have Nat, Euro or Worlds with les than 15 boats????????????
How do we get the entires up to 15 or how does Y&Y know we didn't have 15 there (will they be spying on all Clubs???)
Kean
We welcome your reports from open events, but have increased the entry to 15 or more boats for inclusion in the magazine. All reports submitted must include details of the entry numbers and we will assume that any without this information are below 15. This change DOES NOT affect national, European or world championships, where we will publish the event report regardless of entries.
To be fair perhaps an event with very few entries is not newsworthy ... I'd suggest the challenge is to run a fixture schedule that attracts good turn outs ... if events can't muster any interest from competitors they are hardly likley to be interesting to anyone else ...
When I looked at the 12 fixture list I was amazed by how many events there were ... how many of those events had less than 10 boats last year?
Rick
Emma and James,
From what you say do you believe, like me, that the SW ends at Bristol? Its down to the semantics of what is the West Country and what is the South West.
Personally I think that the SW Area should be a line from Bristol down to Weymouth, outside of that its basically the Thames Valley, hence Thames Area?
Its too easy to look at a map of Devon and Cornwall and draw a conclusion that we have easy communcations, forgetting exactly what an average journey takes time wise when you get West of Plymouth / Bodmin!
From a personal view a SW Circuit comprising of BCYC, Starcross, the 2 Salcombes, Looe, Porthpean and Penzance to name but 6 seems to make sense. Nothing to stop us joining in with the CVDRA at Roadford, what about Siblyback? Saltash regatta and the local regattas we could agree to gate crash? Shall I go on? OK not to the Y&Y 14 boats for sure, but a representation of the Twelves that actually sail in the real South West!!!!!!!!!!!
Murrell, get off your soapbox!
I'm not sure I even know where the SW is, but I reckon I'm going to clock up a fair few miles if I manage to get to enough Gil event s to qualify. Getting back to the original point I would be very warry of knocking off any events just because they are not well attended. This would just lead to even less boats travelling and possibly even lless sailed. either my brain or my key board is not working proterly tonight.
Angus,
Possibly the point is people of the same sort of mind set getting together, enjoying sailing together - possibly competitively - having good fun and a couple of sherberts, and letting people from other classes (SMOD's?) see some of the history of the sport that they are partaking of.
By the way the AA do a very good atlas / roadmap of the UK and it ain't expensive......................................
I AGREE with John, Emma, James. When i first got into sailing 12's 6 years ish ago it comprised mainly of club sailing at Saltash with 5-6 boats. It was great when 4-5 of us packed up the boats and headed to a LOCAL open meeting. Yes when we got there, quite often there were only couple of other boats that turned up, so it wasn't a publicity event. But why does that matter? People locally seeing 12's actively sailing in the area is more likely to get them into the class than reading an article in Y&Y. I didn't start sailing the 12 because of Y&Y it was because i saw the likes of John, Gill, Kath and Tim sailing them. In fact is still don't read it now.
So lets put this next season behind us (shame as it hasn't started) and start a fresh the year after and have a proper South West Series. If we want to race against the rest of the country leave it to the Gill Series, Nationals or travel to their events!
Also an afterthought and I'm not saying Kean hasn't done a good job. But can we not have someone down this way to organise it? I know i would like to be involved but don't have the experience as of yet....maybe in need of shadowing "Yoda" a.k.a John Murrell.
Nath
N3505 (Currently being a proper local boat sailing around the museum in Falmouth)
Well lads an' lasses.
We shall probably have the furthest to travel to a SW event - 2 in fact - BW and Salcombe - a grand total there and back of 3200 Km!
It's worth it though. And Nathan, I think you're right about Y&Y - I didn't get into 12 sailing from reading any yellow-wellied reports either. I wanted a boat that would be a challenge to sail and now I've got two of them. I guess they just grow on you.
My advice re. the SW series would be to devide whole lot into two - the East can go with the Thames Series, the West might like to make more meets in Salcombe Torcross and pepp up Falmouth (Emma and James - just for you ;D). Salcombe already has at least 10 boats and it's really great sailing for them - really tricky and changeable. It would n't take more than 2 more to be able to stick two fingers up to "Le Daufin" Y&Y and say "We've still got ours"!!!!
Cheers!
Jim (writing from a long way off).
Folks I posted the note for a couple of reasons - firstly how would Y&Y KNOW there are less than 15 boats (does the number matter?). As far as Nat / Euro etc of course for new Classes thats OK but for an 'old' class that has 2 boats turning up for a Nationals???
Secondly would this help in anyway to encourage more participation (as you say maybe other sailing mags will get more attention - although this 'rule' was only set up for the Magazine and not web reports).
SW - yes its a large area Penzance SC to Avon SC is 236 miles and 4:45hr from AA travel.com. We started too loate on the SW events to get a better balance and maybe there is a need to split SW up into 2 regions or re-draw the lines as suggested (along the lines of John M - make the SW further SW) or have a NSW and a SSW mini series to help LOCAL travelling. From previous postings / replies many newbies want local travelling maybe even in smaller fleet to help them along. The current environment of high petrol / possibility of road pricing etc is not conducive - never mind the poor roads / roadworks and the time factor!!!
For the SW area it would help to identify where the various boats that sail are, how many and how many would travel (and how far) to help setting up events (this doesn't stop non SW boats attending of course!!). The 12 census replies may help a bit - if not then I'll use the SW mailing list / forum.
Kean
Its seems from the quote that they are only excluding the smaller events from the magazine rather than the website. So maybe we shouldn't worry too much and keep writing the reports.
Its seems from the quote that they are only excluding the smaller events from the magazine rather than the website. So maybe we shouldn't worry too much and keep writing the reports.
I'm with the Y&Y editor on this one, the pages of race write-ups in Y&Y are the dullest pages imaginable. Surely people don't read this section cover to cover?...you just home into the race you took part in to make sure they spelt your name right.
I can't see a report of your average race enticing anyone to take up sailing a particular class of boat. I think the page space, and our efforts would be much better spent on publishing reports of genuinely exciting races with good photos. Better to make a big splash a handful of times a year........
On the South West theme John is spot-on..it stops at Bristol and Weymouth. South Cerney is even within a mile of the source of the Thames, so if that's not Thames Valley I don't know what is! No problem with areas overlapping to help people who live on the borders though, but the bulk of SW events need to be central to the SW.
Seems to me some of you are missing the point ... the problem here is that some turnouts are poor ...
We've been over this ground before but I think the fact Rick has flagged up this quirk (i.e. 1001 events...) as a newcomer is significant.
Maybe the SW and Scotland are special cases due to awkward geography, but the Midlands, Eastern and Thames areas are big offenders on the sub-10 boat open meeting scale. A cull is needed or responsibility for these events completely delegated to the area reps and only Gill Series and other traditionally big turnout events included on the events list and used to publicise the class.
The Y&Y issue is academic as its a given that those classes that don't get good turnouts at their events tend not to mention it while those that do crow about it - its pretty obvious to anybody researching a potential change of class as to which is which.
Anyway at least the 12 event list is a bit more reliable than the Europe international calendar - a direct lift from the ISAF calendar (which is wrong...) with events on it that don't have a Europe class while those that do are omitted - inspired.... :) ::)
Cheers
Tim
N3497 (for sale....)
Europe GBR346
I think you pretty much hit the hammer on the head there tim as allways but i don't see any need neccesarily to abandon any opens, just to concentrate efforts on the more popular ones.
Bye the way just to show what a sad person I am I roughly (cause Aa route finder don't know where sailing clubs are and neither do I. specially if they are south of watford gap) worked ou the mileage I am going to do to attend the 4 closest Gills A mear 1984 miles giving a driving time of 40hr and 16 minutes and that doesn't include getting lost. I'll have to get some carbon bits to shrink my footprint!
By the way still saving Tim