I would have loved to have done the Tybee at some point, but here are my reasons I have not (listing as I'm sure others have similar reasons), in no particular order:
- Cost. My boat coast 20k, I'm not going to destroy it launching on and off a beach until I have more money, just don't have that right now. Other costs, being there, not being at work, lodgings, etc, just can't do it.
- I'm not bored of "turning left". In fact, I doubt I ever will, as I get to do lots of hoists, douses, starts, roundings, etc per race. And lots of races. I've done tonnes of distance racing in bigger boats (from 300 miles to atlantic crossing) and yes, they are fun, but a different bag of tricks. If you are hooked on starts / roundings / lots of manouvers in tight quarters, distance racing doesn't have the draw you would think it does.
- Time: Similar to costs, my boat does 10+ events in about a very limited season (I'm a northerner, waaaay north). To dedicate the week to a long distance event would mean dropping other events. With the NAs being close to me this year, I need every one of those small weekend events just to be able to hang with the "big guns".
I can see myself doing a distance race, possibly in a year where I'm not going to do the NAs or similar, and I hope tybee comes back, or similar events crop up.
My suggestion (as someone who knows nothing about the event as I've never done it):
- Have "team packages" like team velocitek. I.e I pay x dollars and get all the land support, logistics, etc taken care of. X dollars should be a fair price that is helped out by sponsorship
- Perhaps shorter versions of the race for people who can't commit to the entire time off (I'm guessing this is a big reason for drop off as the F18 fleet gets more competitive, teams have more events to go to with the same amount of vaca time).
- Fleets should help sponsor this (manufacturers, etc). I live in a city where we are THE racing cat (not the best, the only ;-). After all the SA coverage of Tybee two years ago I had three keel boaters offer to be my land support if we planned on racing Tybee. They had never heard of F18 sailing or anything, they just were so enthralled by the idea of the Tybee. I think events like this have a large part to play in promoting multi sailing.
Just my 2 cents, and personally I can't wait to do a distance race, just not sure when. Maybe I can convince the local "big boat" fleet to let me join there 30 + mile day races.
Cheers,
-P
Keith..
They F18 sailors will turn to distance racing when they get bored with turning left all the time.
However...It might be a small number of sailors who want to break the pattern and race from A to B.
Back in the day... the Hobie 16 and 18 sailors were the core group for all of the distance races.... They did both. Now a days... they have a very strong fleet and no ... zero interest in distance races. (understandably, they don't want to finish 2 to 3 hours behind the spin 20's and that is probably a strong negative unless they could get a fleet of like minded H16 sailors together.)
Perhaps, the strong one design buoy racing scene keeps them interested in buoys sailing and they don't have the itch to go some place on their boat. Those Hobie sailors with the itch to sail from A to B have moved on.
Another possibility ... when CRAC was successfully running distance races... our buoy races were all on portsmouth and we had a real range of boats.... We had 20 years of no strong one design racing to speak of... Distance racing on portsmouth was much more fun then portsmouth buoy racing.
Since the beach cat world has consolidated into a handful of fleets you have to look for distance racers in those ranks.
Bottom line, the group of sailors with the itch to go from A to B is small in any of our current OD fleets.
Your point that we don't have many opportunities to get experience in distance races may be true but not that important.. We still don't have new sailors taking on a 40 mile race with 200 other boats... We just get our 5 to 10 boats... same guys... no new faces.
So, I think that until the F18 and F16 sailors get bored with turning left week in and week out the numbers will be small. Putting a 1000 mile race on the schedule might get the old guard back out for their last extreme race... but probably not the average weekend warrior.
Finally, the more single handed the fleet becomes... the less likely that a distance race will be popular. I am not likely to run a 40 mile race on my A cat.... turns out the big boats need lots of crew and I want to do Annapolis to Bermuda one day!
My suggestion then.... Just keep asking the F18 and F16 sailors... are you bored with turning left yet?
