Pepin: I don't get Bundock's move in the 57th minute of race 15. Why come back up to weather like that?

It looked like there was a shift to the right making the finish line a bit close to the wind. If the left pin wasn't where the GPS said it was (more left) then a quick tack to the left pin might allow you to pick up some of the boats that kept sailing to the right side of the finish.

I think he went around the finish line instead of through it. DNF better than RAF? He must have done something bad. Considering how close he was from GBR7 all the way around he must have tried something tactical I'm guessing.

Just heard from the boys... much better results today will move them back up a bit. A 5th and a 6th I heard. Not sure on the third race for the day. No official results are up yet.

The winner is:

FRA 36 BACKES Olivier / JARLEGAN Arnaud Hobie Wild Cat

Information overload coming out of Erquy again!

I do have to say... very poorly done on their part. Still no results. Very little info or even pictures this week. At the peak of interest in this thing you can't find out about ANYTHING. The only cool thing has been the tracking, but without the entire fleet listed or real results for the fleet available fairly quick... Its been really frustrating.

On twitter Bundy said he was second...

I am not so sure we can bitch about the coverage

Back in the day... the regatta organizer would have been responsible for getting the results published by the day after the event and a brief regatta report published for their class publication... perhaps months down the road.

The goal was to give the class members who did not participate a taste of what they missed and motivate them to make the next big class event.

It seems that people think that real time regatta reports will do MORE then this.... and actually grow the class (more new sailors) and grow participation (bigger numbers). (Do you think that the media intense regatta grows interest in the class and increases participation or is this BS... If you agree... what other non cat regattas have you watched on line?)

So... Here is my question is... Who should pay for the multimedia real time reporting every one wants.

The Class Association through dues... because they are the audience for any media reporting?

The competitors at the event... because they get the benefit of the publicity to the world at large?

A sponsor who would rather see their sponsorship go into the internet media then say a dinner or giveaways to the competitors?

Or ... Set it up as pay per view and let those that interested in the class and the event pay for the show?



Lots of related questions... if the Class Association is paying for media.... Do they own the copyright and control the message.

Should you pay for reporters to cover your event?

Should there be a clear line between Reporters who cover events for media outlets... like SA, CatSailor, XS racing, Scuttlebut, Daily Sail, Catsailing blg and the PR person your class hires to represent the class to the world.

I think it makes for a much broader audience for sure. Especially if you can get it onto SA or major outlets as was done for the Texas 300 or even the West Coast F18 Champs. A week long event like the 300 fares better than a weekend one in that regard. Followers are on line all week. Its great for family and friends too. Once the event is over the interest falls totally flat.

I've done this (unofficially) at most every H16 Worlds I've been to in recent years. It's not high tech or costly to get some images and some info up on a timely basis. You just have to have a dedicated interest to share info.

It isn't always easy as noted by Jeremy in SF. They had all the assets except for a clean Internet connection. I hear that was an issue in France as well.

I guess we don't need full coverage in real time, but at least the official results should be on the web when the ceremony is over. It´s just sending a file by ftp.

Does anybody have any results?

And anyone know who was sailing what sort of boat?

Anyone else feel like a mushroom?


Regards,

Paul

Mark, are you F-ing kidding???

Why should we lower ourselves to other classes who are doing this poorly? It is embarassing in this day and age that real-time coverage isn't the NORM.

This can be low-budget; for example, in 2006 at the Hobie 16 NAs in RI, Lori Mohney did live updates from my RV via a wifi connection, being fed information via VHF from the water (Mimi). As Matt can attest, this had been common practice at major Hobie Cat events for many years prior to 2006.

This is a service to all sailors interested in the classes. If we can't attend a major event, we want to be able to read about how our friends are doing. This has nothing to do with sponsors, growing the class, or anything else. True, all of those things can be wrapped in (an up goes the cost and difficulty), but at the end of the day, WE are the primary audience, and that's who we should be focused on pleasing.

If SA can figure out a way to profit from this, more power to them, but it looks to me like they're eating volunteers to make it go.

Mike

SA's not really 'eating volunteers', there is definitely $$ switching hands. There should be $$ switching hands too, and the classes and manufacturers and whoever else with a vested interest in the event should want to pony-up I think. It's definitely not easy to live feed with a skeleton crew, there should be at least 4 dudes helping out, but that's not often practical.

Wait until you see our next OTWA West production for example. The learning curve was steep, but we have it dialed now...technology-wise at least. Commentary's still gonna suck.

Even just blogging in conjunction with a ton of pics in a thread at regular intervals is better than nothing, and it's cheap and anyone can do it. It just means that someone's going to have to lay off the rum a bit. It's like having designated driver.

Normally, the yacht club hosting the event is proud to have the event and is interested in publicizing the happenings. They would also stand to benefit from the national or worldly exposure for their club. The class would expect to benefit from the exposure as well - certainly with 150 boats on the start line, it's one of the world's largest sailing events and these numbers and this exposure will help to keep the class healthy and viable and growing. Usually, this works out pretty well as everyone is interested in the publicity.

Both the very recent A-cat worlds and the F18 worlds have had abysmal publicity and it's a real shame. As folks pointed out, it's really not that hard to provide. Video is nice but not necessary...pictures and some reporting are easy and should be required.

With two dull examples having just taken place, I feel like the global class organizations (F18, A-cat, F16, etc) should have a requirement of the clubs hosting the events to provide a particular minimum of online coverage as a requirement for hosting the event.

You're suggesting the A Class, F18, and F16 classes sit down at the same table.

Over the last couple years we have been filming at events like the Teva Mountain Games, Gorge Games, surf contests, etc and one characteristic of the the successful (success in terms of gaining and retaining sponsorship) events is that media is a primary, if not the main, consideration.

Teva has been the gold standard. The entire weekend is planned with media and viewership in mind. So many times we heard "losing crowd" on the organizers radios when there was a gap in the action between events. Organizers quickly redirected spectators and media to the next event or to some point of interest. The event is a carefully orchestrated plan of moving crowds and media from one area of interest to the next. Yes, this is a different kind of an event than a sailing regatta, but the point is the same, the sponsors and media coverage are at least on equal footing with the event organization.

I get asked to come and shoot video a lot, usually at most a few weeks or maybe a month or two before the event. There is usually no budget, and for the most part, no overall media strategy. We realize shooting video at a sailing event is not a profit motivated undertaking. You do it to help the sport and hopefully have some fun. I think most people like myself however, are not willing to take a loss over the expenses. On top of that, were missing work if its during the week which is another loss. There needs to be some budget, which means sponsors, which means a media plan.

One of the events that did get some decent viewership was the F18 Nationals that Tracy Hawks ran years ago. We started working with her well in advance and even though we had problems like the internet troubles, we got a large about of videos out during the week. At one point we had power boats running tapes back and forth to the beach so that we could edit in parallel during the day and post videos each night. When we realized our internet link wouldn't work, we made a deal with a local homeowner to outfit his house with a new wireless router if he let us set up a link from his house to the beach for the week. The point being, the event organizers kept media coverage as a main focus.

I know this is easier said than done, and can be a lot of extra work. Its quite often hard enough just to get enough people to run the event, but just thought Id add my 2 cents as we really enjoy filming at these kind of events.

Ok, the results are finally up - there must have been a lot of arm waving and long faces when they went up
I still don't get how they came to an redress average of 14 points for GBR7
If you average all the other score [as before] I make it 9.6

I'm not sure how you got that out of that.

You had suggested a "particular minimum". How else would you determine the minimum?

At least a report from each race to be posted within 1 hour of the conclusion of each race and an overall report of the day posted within 2 hours of the completion of the day's final race? 20 photos per day?