Winter champs
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Hi guys,
Just noticed that the Winter Champs has been scheduled for King George SC in february. Just wondering why it is there again as its not a particularly nice venue and there will be reasonably sized fleets sailing over the winter months at Ardleigh, Burghfield and South Staffs. Surely it would be better to rotate the Winter Champs annually amongst these fleets? Especially as there’s the possibility for socials and putting people up for night. Just a thought – not sure if there’s the chance to make a change now?
Cheers,
SiI agree with Simon that ideally we’d have the winters at a venue where OKs are sailed perhaps with a sat night social to make it more of an event. But having done fixtures for a few years, I know that working out venues/timings isn’t easy so King George is probably a done deal for Feb – they have been very helpful in the past.
Cheers
NickSimon
As you are now the eastern area rep and on the OK committee if you had attended the committee meeting at the inlands you could have brought up this subject when we discussed fixtures?
King George have done us proud and this years winters was excellent and next years is all confirmed so hope to see you there.
I do take your point on board. At the Burghfield open the Bristol boys were talking about holding the winters at their club but i thought its a bit far for you Eastern boys. So perhaps in future we could do something different.
Deryck
I agree that in an ideal world it would be great to hold the Winters at clubs with OK fleets, at least some of the time.
The argument for going to other none sailing OK clubs was that it would hopefully promote the OK dinghy to a wider audience. It has been proven in the past that holding events at ‘other’ clubs has led to people buying OKs. If they had not seen it would they have bought one?
There is an issue with South Staffs that may be relevant at other clubs, whereby the adopted club dinghy class’s each have and allocated day each year for their open meeting. If for instance the OK class wish to hold another event at South Staffs such as the Youth & Juniors Champs this year, a request must be submitted to the committee and it is not easy to gain agreement. The reason events are limited is to protect the club racing. Neil and Bill know how it works better than I do, but I think we would struggle to gain agreement for a Winter Champs every few years at South Staffs.
How about trying to host it at an OK club every two years and go somewhere different in between? We then get the best of both worlds.
Mike
Hi Deryck/Mike
Please don’t take these comments the wrong way as I have been a class fixtures sec as well and know how difficult it can be! I needed to get back so couldn’t make the committee meeting at the Inlands. However, it was something that I mentioned to Tony before I left Northampton. Perhaps the committee needs to start using email for communications as it certainly seems very quiet on that front. Perhaps Dave could set up a multiple forwarding committee@ address to get views from everyone. Afterall we all want the class to grow in the UK and nothing has really changed since I started sailing the OK 3 years ago which doesn’t really encourage growth.
From my experience, the best way to promote travelling to events and increase numbers is to reduce the number of events (especially when times are tight) to perhaps one open every 3-4 weeks. We need to go to venues where the class is already sailed, venues that make you want to travel, mix-it-up every year so it doesn’t stagnate (KG again…) and always include a few new venues or ones that haven’t been visited for a long time. The Inlands should also be moved earlier in the year as a build up to the Nationals at Brixham (which is a great venue by the way!) – how about having it at BCYC for a change as there is a great opportunity to grow a fleet there.
The first event of the year is especially important as that can set the enthusiasm for the rest of the year. I don’t think its too late to change venues (other classes often don’t announce them until late Jan/Feb) and I would defintely go to an established fleet for the Winters and rotate it around the various clubs as its a great opportunity to promote the forthcoming year to more people.
Mike, we got around the one event rule at SSSC with the Larks in the past by combining the event with club racing which worked very well and the club sailors didn’t lose any races. I don’t think the Winters is seen as that serious as event, so combining it with club racing would be a really positive move – even if it was a two race, both to count event. Surely the minimum required numbers for an open meeting is 15 boats and there weren’t that many with that number this year.
Sorry, but I’m not a fan of sailing around a concrete bowls in London so i’ll probably avoid packing the boat away and sail at Ardleigh on the Sunday where their will be 8-10 boats racing in the Frostbite series. I know that Ardleigh is very welcoming of visitors so perhaps there could be more?
Cheers,
SimonI quite enjoyed the winters last year but was wintry and windy so made it interesting launching but did blow out the cobwebs for those who attended.
however may not be able to attend most events at the begining of the year unless i beg and plead for a boat.
is anyone planning to come along to the draycote dash this weekend? me and tom are going (I think tom has had his hip replaced though as he is sailing a solo???) should be a laugh and if a few oks joined in would also make for an interesting winter series perhaps. I will be attempting to go to most of the winter series but not all.
looking forward to seeing next years calender!!
good job noone took burt at his word, the only ok sailer entered is nock and he is sailing a d1 . apart from the cold is the fact that we are handicapped as faster than a laser and 36 points faster than a solo have anything to do with it :evil: . i am certainly not interested in entering if the playing field is that biassed and throwing my money away. can the committee not liase with sailjuice and get it reduced then you could consider these venues for the winter champs possibly :idea:
Nick and I had considerable correspondence with Grafham Water SC last year over their ridiculous handicapping system to no great effect.
Instead of attending these events perhaps we should have a proper winter series for OKs in each of our areas (East. Midlands, North, West, TVA). I’m quite happy to travel 90 miles to Ardleigh every Sunday to have some good racing against other OKs, rather than attending a “travelling circus”. The alternative seems to be borrow a Wayfarer or Solo or even a Laser and I couldn’t stomach sailing any of those!
Andy
Wow. The handicap for Lasers is just WILD! It’s what, 30 points away from the normal PY handicap?
That gives them a 3% advantage compared to their current number, and even the PY number has been getting more generous for Lasers recently.
It’s hard to imagine any logical reason for that, even if the quality of the laser sailors in the event is really poor.
h
apologies to burt he did gop to draycote with tom. and yes tom sailing a solo did beat him something about the handicap cos burt must weigh nearly twice as much as tom by now :mrgreen:
well apparently i was counted as a medium handcap boat so only had 6 minutes deducted off my time not the 9 it should of been.
was good fun though looking at the amazment on peoples faces in rs 200s and larks as i pass them upwind (then the wind dropped and i stopped) suppose it dosent help starting 5 minutes late in the pursuit race.
Posting this report here as Dave is in France.
15 sailors turned up for the Winter Champs at Ardleigh. Many thanks to those who had travelled a long way to get there – Burt, Cameron Tweedle, Simon Davies, Tony Rich, Roland Gadsby. Several sailors had their boats in Thailand and were therefore sailing borrowed or number 2 boats (Lee, Robert, Fish, Burt)
We had a force 2-3 and Team Turner (Andy, Will and Pete + Simon Shaw) in the committee boat and start box setting excellent courses and square start lines (of course!).
In race 1 Richard Burton made the best start with Paul Church in hot pursuit. These two pulled out a good lead over the rest of the pack. Robert Deaves made the worst start but managed over the 4 laps to pull himself up to third with Simon Davies, having been over to Ardleigh during the Frostbite series to test the water, getting into 4th. Lee Child made an excellent job of keeping his battered Seamark Nunn boat in third place until finally finishing 5th. Fish sailed in a rather disconsolate 10th having capsized on the first run. Tony Rich also tested the water twice during the first race (it was 2 degrees C).
After lunch race 2 started in slightly more wind. Simon Davies made the windward mark first and sailed off into the distance whilst 6 boats battled away for second. Fish fought hard and just got himself into second on the last beat but fouled a boat coming into the mark. His spins put him back to 6th. Richard finished 2nd, Toby Ramsay 3rd, Paul Church 4th and Tony Rich 5th.
Any one of three sailors could win overall if they won the last race – Simon Davies, Richard Burton and Paul Church. Roland Gadsby chose the right side of the first beat and had a good lead at the windward mark, followed by Simon Davies and Richard Burton. Simon took the lead on the second reach and whilst Richard attacked hard, couldn’t quite get into the lead. Simon won this race with Richard second and Roland third.
Many thanks to Ardleigh for hosting the event, particularly the lunch and afternoon tea – all for a tenner which shows how much we are over charged at other clubs. Pics to follow.
Final results: 1st Simon Davies (Upper Thames); 2nd Richard Burton (West Oxfordshire); 3rd Paul Church (Harlow Blackwater), 4th Robert Deaves (Waldringfield), 5th Toby Ramsay (Dabchicks), 6th Lee Child (Dabchicks), 7th Rowland Gadsby (Upper Thames), 8th Tony Rich (Oxford/Upper Thames?), 9th Jon Fish (Waldringfield), 10th Paul Berry (Ardleigh), 11th Cameron Tweedle (and 1st junior) (Oxford), 12th Simon Cox (Waldringfield), 13th Tim Hurst (West Mersea), 14th Dan Ager (Waldringfield), 15th Drum Sydenham (Dabchicks)
Andy
Big thanks to Andy for making this happen, and lending me his boat, as well as all those who helped. It was some useful last minute training for Thailand, even if perhaps I did try a little too hard not to damage Andy’s boat.
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