Mark, take the last five Alter Cups run before the changes (none of which I was chair, BTW) and peruse the bottom 15 finishers at each event. Your insistence that the event was only for elites is ridiculous.

As mentioned, I was always a big fan of what the event "was."

But, toward the end of that run, how many qualifiers were valid, as in, run per the US Sailing requirements?

Mike

What does that have to do with it? US Sailing "requirements" don't fit the layout of our sailing community as catamaran sailors. I can go into more detail upon inspection of that last statment. That said, I did strive to push our area into meeting the US Sailing requirements but we slid in the area of allowing non-US sailing members participate toward the end. We allowed them to participate to not excluding the company of our friends that aren't concerned with qualifying (although they knew their scores wouldn't count toward the qualification). We regularly had one of the top three attended qualifiers without that in mind. One could argue that we introduced people to US Sailing.

Nice try Jake!

The principle is the same as allowing non class members to race in your OD NA's.... You could say you are introducing the new guys to your class.

Every qualifier that I ran... which could be 20 or so had no integrity because I did exactly what you did...

You are between a rock and a hard place on this... You have a Yacht Club that is hosting your event and you must have enough sailors to make the event viable financially. You also don't have any rank and file support for the championship as designed. The happy talk about the good ol days were actually a racket.

US Sailing would just strike all of the non members and cope with the lack of integrity by the catamaran world. It took a nasty protest in another championship for US sailing to change their practice and follow the rules we all agreed on. We were O for 10 in the last round of Area championships that followed the rules.

There was no glory in the good ol days.

I bet that NO area rep has gotten a phone call about ... gee where is the area qualifier... I really miss that regatta..... I certainly don't miss having to flim flam them.

JDub, your PM says you're over the limit. Stop downloading so much porn

First point to make, Mark, is that the Area J event continues - we have it every year and the names on the perpetual are meaningful. You say the qualifiers had no integrity, but you miss (intentionally?) Jake's point that they worked for our community. We had events that were well attended and sent good teams to the finals. Your assertion that the championship didn't have support is simply false, as evidenced by the financial success, the administrative continuity, and full berths at every championship. I get that you have to cling to the premise that there wasn't support in the sailing community, because without it you're kinda nowhere. US Sailing had to force out nearly all the volunteers in order to revise the history and start from scratch. This wasn't limited to the Alter Cup, of course. It was part of the larger reorganization. Water under the bridge.

Since you were willfully not a participant, I again submit that you don't know what you're talking about when you say there were no good ol' days. Must be present to win. Or conversely, ask those who were. And if someone like Jake "Runs with Screw Gun" Kohl pipes up, your first inclination should not be to shout, "Liar!"

This is a point that cannot be understated Mark!

John... it was a nice harmless racket while it lasted... Perhaps you forget about some very popular rackets... My favorite In Baltimore, was the Peabody Book store, which was very popular back in the day... not for the book store in the front... but for the bar in back room. A profitable racket at the time!

I and Jake made it work for our regions... We pretended that all of these sailors were signing up to compete, The sailors pretended to be members, following all of the rules of the championship ladder competitions when really we were just racing another local weekend regatta. It was a nice little harmless racket that worked for our community. I am glad some of my friends participated in the second step of the championships. I believe that you had a great time sailing in them and you believe they were successful....just like the owners and patrons of my Peabody Bookstore.

I personally don't think it was wise to routinely petition and succeed in pulling large amounts of money out of the endowment to keep the racket going... but water under the bridge.. Time has moved on. This racket, just like the Peabody Bookstore racket, is over and those that benefited will just have to adjust.

Dave.... It is ONE championship with two parts... Qualifiers and a Championship. I participated for 20 friggin years by sailing in and running many qualifiers.

Or did you forget this detail?

It would appear that you are suggesting that the previous iterations of the Alter cup were less than on-the-level as a bar in the backroom of a bookstore would be. This is an uninformed suggestion with no supporting fact and, frankly, quite disrespectful to anyone that has helped organize or compete in the event during the period it was being run in the image that the founders created.

Yep!.... I deliberately skirted the rules on qualifiers to cover my clubs costs.

Apparently you did the same..

In fact...the last round of qualifiers were ALL not valid. (that is the only one I saw data for all Areas.)

It was a nice harmless racket... but it was a racket!

We're not on the same page. We didn't skirt any rules to cover costs. We continued to run our qualifiers in a manner consistent (actually, quite improved) from iterations in the past. New rules were placed upon us by a select few within US Sailing that made it more difficult (rather impossible in some cases) to comply. I tried to strike a balance between servicing the needs and desires of our local sailors and complying with new rules that we didn't get a say on, that didn't benefit us, and in many ways degraded the quality of the event. That said, we did have several years of 100% compliance in my area.

Our qualifiers were not a "racket". We ran clean fair contests and had legitimate winners and/or runner-ups that went on to participate in the championship.

How many times were you asked to be an area rep and how many years did you serve? You and I both know your motivation to run and sail in your qualifier was to give credablity to your passion, handicap racing. You never had any passion for the Alter Cup and its format.

Guys, attacking each other isn't really helpful. Seems like no one can mention US Sailing here without people freaking out. It does not serve us well.

My point was simply that there is a long history of us not being very good at making people want to join, well before my tenure. My goal is to find ways to improve that.

Mike

After Larry's comments about kids sailing hobie cats at the presser yesterday - the 1st agenda item should be about getting a call into Larry and giving the US Multihull council's plan to make that happen.

Or at least get him to throw some money at US Sailing Multihull kids training programs.

Believe me, Larry will not just throw money at you unless he sees that you have a plan and the capability of pulling it off.

Mike, if you want to get more people to join, first you have to answer this simple question (a question I've heard too many times at regattas):

What's in it for me?

You have to come up with $60 worth of 'Value' to sell it to non-members, and guess what, a regatta or two, ie. the Alter Cup and a qualifier, ain't it for most of us.

Oh, by the way, I did just last week, renew my membership through the Golden Anchor program, but only because I got a nice letter from whom ever is in charge of that program now (Liz?), and I got a $10 Discount! Oh, and I needed a new rule book anyway!

I'll still probably never attend an Alter Cup qualifier or the Alter Cup itself. It's not my thing. It brings out the worst in people, just look back at this thread.

I sail for fun, to relax, not for drama, I get enough of that at home with the 4 kids.

And right now, for the first time in 4 days, I see sun outside, and there's some wind, so I'm going sailing! Man is my lake full now! It's come up about 5 feet this summer!

See Ya!

Tim, the struggle to administer the event has nothing to do with the teams' experience during the event. You should give it a go in whatever incarnation is available. The fleet, almost to a man (or woman), hasn't a clue that constant, year-round planning is going on. Further, most don't spend time on the forum. If you like racing, you'd like the Alter Cup.

I'm sure Larry would consider contributing MATCHING funds to whatever we (USS) can muster.