Yes, but it's modest enough to be enough bang for the buck that even our small Upper Keys Sailing Club uses it for "big" regattas. I'm sure US Sailing would require some subsidy to use such a thing as well.

Annapolis to Oxford is September 13th, return trip September 14th. Low hassle, we had 10 beachcats on the line last year, party at the finish, sail back the next day. No ground crew needed, 70 miles of sailing, centrally located for the Northeast and Southeast fleets!!

Leave your boat rigged and race two days the following weekend!

Thanks Barb. Although, I am not new to Regatta Network and am a HUGE fan of it, my point was the discussion portion of making up a schedule that everyone can not only live with but can more easily participate in. Just making plans independent of a larger process has led us to: SF being cancelled, MWE showing modest at best numbers etc..etc....etc...see what I mean?

I think having regional calendars that are visible to all are worthwhile based around the "usually suspects" of attendees. These can overlap a bit.

For example:

FL, GA Calendar
N. FL, AL, MS, GA Calendar
SC, NC, GA, TN , VA Calendar
VA, MD, PA, DL Calendar
New England Calendar

Each adjacent region should coordinate with the other adjacent regions to [try] minimize the schedule conflicts (I think this sorta takes place today).

Beyond that, I think each adjacent area should have 1 race per year (outside of the big ones that Jake mentions - Tradewinds, SpringFever, SteepleChase) that we all make a concerted effort to try and attend to make it a "super regional regatta".

For example, Pensacola is has a good sailing venue so us in Central Florida should make a time to get up there to race and bring boats....then maybe the guys on the fringe in GA and SC might find that more boats there are attractive and bring 4-5 more.

Another idea, might be to rearrange schedules of FL races to be more heavily geared towards DEC-MAR. Targeted towards cold weather climate sailors who could bring their boats down for the first race and leave them in FL while flying in to make other races.

Current Races In Florida during that timeframe:
DEC: SteepleChase
Jan: Tradewinds
Feb: Charlotte Harbor, Hagar (low key fun weekend)
Mar: SpaceCoast 45

Maybe consider switching out KPRR on Labor Day weekend with Hagar for full weekend of buoy racing.

For our fleet, MWE just doesn't really fit into the schedule. We have spring training in Newport during April, then our season starts mid-May at Madcatter. I think for many of us, training as a group in Newport during April makes more sense financially and in terms of vacation time then traveling to MWE or Spring Fever. Personally, I would rather save my limited money for something like Nationals later in the season.

I like the concept of a centralized "one-stop" to look at a wide variety of stuff.

I almost missed this because it's not on a multihull or beachcat calendar: http://m.naplesnews.com/news/2014/mar/27/sail-away-regatta-to-hit-the-waters-off-naples/

Most likely due to the organizers lack of knowledge of where to post stuff. In this particular event beachcats aren't participating (something in the NOR about self-righting and cabins), BUT that doesn't mean a beachcat or two can't "shadow" (Timbo's word) the fleet and make them look silly sorry, that was for the monohulls (guess they don't like sailing canoes or Sunfish)...

Some Hard facts of life.. with no magic solutions.

We are Over scheduled.... See Jeff's feedback... Not enough racers on the midwinter travel circuit to give these events critical mass.

Stupidity... having apathy kill off Spring Fever
VS
Triage ... Class and regatta leaders having a meeting and making hard decisions.

Word. Our guys in the North/South are Mark Van Doren and Michael McNeir, and if they aren't seeing this, I'll get them up to speed, but if there ends up being a Tony Soprano type meeting of the classes to get a non saturated schedule together, they will be our go to guys from HCA's perspective.
We would be able to better support the Georgia regatta if we could persuade the organizers into a Hobie 16 separate start. We asked, but were denied a couple years in a row and can certainly bring people/equipment/whatever to the event to help.

Jake, I respectfully disagree that your process can't use improvements. You just lost Spring Fever. That would be like losing Madcatter and saying, "Nothing is wrong here, go about your business..."

Barb, if we put something on the US Sailing site, it will be free. It will simply be a hosted schedule, so it won't cost them anything. It will be up to us to maintain the schedule.

While I have some reservations as to whether people will actually use it, this is precisely the type of stuff US Sailing and the Multihull Racing Committee absolutely should be doing as a service to our members.

Mike

Chris reminds me or what is truly irreplaceable are GREAT VENUES. Places that sailors enjoy going to with good waters to sail. 1) Property owners, (state or private) have to take a very hard look at giving you permission to use their property. 2) You MUST HAVE local volunteers to make events happen... you can't run them from 500 miles away.

The assumption that the free market... let the individual sailor vote by picking and choosing ASSUMES that the marketplace exists and if one event gets killed off... it is readily replace by another equally fine event... maybe yes.. maybe no...

Burning your clubs and the irreplaceable venues that they make available is beyond stupid....

Fair enough - but where did we go wrong scheduling Spring Fever and what would you change?

I haven't finished my run through all of the data (I'm crushed with both 1st work and 2nd work at the moment) and it will probably be several weeks before I get back to it...but I think the scheduling conflict only had a minimal impact on Spring Fever. The decline has been going on for a while. The decline of the Hobie 16 attendance (was once 28 boats and down to 5) was one reason, late notification this year probably didn't help. F18's having a big late 2013 with a large America's Champs in Florida certainly impacted people's travel decisions (I offered free board and competitive boat to some key folks and couldn't entice them to attend). The only scheduling issues I know of is that we probably lost 6 or 8 A-cats to the NC event that also couldn't make it work and was cancelled. The Nacra 17 European event also took away two or three teams. So maybe we could have enticed another 6 or 8 a-caters to sign up IF we had been able to talk the other event organizers into moving their date away from Easter...we know we're not getting the European people to move their dates...so even if we got the A-cat guy's talked into moving their schedule, that still wouldn't have put the event over the threshold.

Besides, we wouldn't likely been able to move Spring Fever away from Easter weekend...so what could we have done differently as it relates to the schedule?

It's not just about the weekend you pick, but the overall big picture (and I'm absolutely not picking a fight with you).

As a reminder, the MRC is more than a few volunteers from various areas of the country. I have been trying to emphasize that this committee is made up of leaders from each of the major classes, and it is in situations like this that it becomes glaringly apparent that we need to improve here.

I have organized more than enough events and seasons to know that, even when there are tons of boats, these decisions can be brutally difficult, and some people and clubs cannot be persuaded. When the core number of boats drops, it becomes absolutely essential to not schedule on top of (or even in close proximity to) one another.

We need to start thinking like a big group, or we may wind up with nothing but a bunch of small groups begging for a start at other events.

Maybe we move MWE to SF next year, and get the A cats to make it a major event. Move it to a biannual schedule.

Let's start thinking way outside the box...

Mike

What kept me from coming back to Spring Fever in the past was, it was on Easter Weekend. With 4 little kids in the house, I had baskets to fill. Momma wasn't happy with me when I got home from the one time I did go...and it rained, and we were wet and cold in our little tent...and then there was no wind.

In later years as I watched the weather more, being a Florida to Atlanta commuter, it seems the weather is a real crap shoot that time of year in that area. One year it's freezing cold and raining, another it's hot with no wind....so maybe if they moved it to May or June?

Jake, I think you are correct... your EMSA scheduling process is probably just right for the region. It sounds like each year you sailors take into account the number of events and the number of sailors. You make the call on the fun factor for each event and the local sailors do their thing.... you guys get the critical mass that works for you...

The local sailors can't get critical mass for Spring Fever
The issue is that the non EMSA fleet failed to show up in numbers.

The problem is.... There is no structure to manage this...

Contrast the Hobie MWE crew with Spring Fever crew...

Who Does Mr Ernie call from each class? Does he need to contact the regional class leaders? Does Mr Ernie even call anyone.... or does he just happily assume that if you build it... they will come. Does Mr Ernie even care what the fleets and classes are up to.. He could think that all that he needs is the email list from the last few years to rally the troops. He just needs to put the web site up a bit earlier... (really???)

Meanwhile... it sounds like the MWE guys have been trying to contact everyone they could... SINCE LAST YEAR and not getting support or clear answers.

The problem is larger then EMSA... and it is larger then the Spring Fever crew or the MWE crew can manage as well.

Chris W.... I wouldn't use the Soprano analogy... I prefer something more sinister... how about the Tri Lateral commission!

Partly because Easter moves, too. Some years it's brutally early in the year (for GA)... dang solar/lunar cycles. I've got enough of them in the house....

First Hiram's, then SF? What's next? Please don't say T-winds... I'm downloading charts of Florida Bay to get there..

The more I look at Jake's data from past events, I have come to the conclusion that Spring Fever could have happened. The numbers cannot take into account the late notice on getting the website up, and even later registration opened up.

How can you compare 10 days of time compared to nearly 2 months last year? People are generally slow to sign up, and plenty of people assume that others will take care of the problems. I also feel that the "warning" about the lack of critical mass could have been done a little differently and a change in timing may have affected the outcome.

I think I see a few places that the system could be improved, but I don't think the past formula is that kept SF from happening this year. I am thinking that it wasn't exactly given a proper chance.

No fight being picked here either...I still don't think that having a(nother) master nation wide schedule would have changed Spring Fever's fate this year. However, your point about working with the classes and keeping an active dialog would probably make a difference. Maybe the master schedule provides a conduit for it - it's the one time of year our group's organization is most active by far when we are hashing out the schedule. The trick would be getting it done in a manner that can both span some time (allowing people to go back and check / discuss their schedules with their folks) and be open while being directed on point.

EMSA doesn't have enough active sailors to keep Spring Fever alive alone. I would say that all of our active sailors (except one pair who had a conflict) signed up in force. Our regattas have been in decline over the last 12 years as well and a good regatta for us is 15-20 boats.

You are hitting on some of the same points as brucat and I think this is probably the single most valuable thing that we can do is get the classes to come together to talk strategy. There could be some positive impact if we did manage to combine efforts and combine events. I'm not sure if that's doable or not.

2

Mike I'm not saying don't do it, it won't hurt anything to have another schedule. My point is the issue isn't a lack of published schedules. I also caution against running down rabbit holes created by people that don't go to regatta's and won't go no matter what we do. How many times have we made changes to accomodate these people only to have them not show up anyway. If you're going to burn cycles burn those cycles on solving the schedule saturation problem. This is NOT a simple task and requires a huge amount of cooperation. If USSailing can pull this one task off I might have my faith restored.

We also have to acknowledge the elepant in the room which is the sport has been on the decline for a very long time and we are feeling the pinch and will continue to feel the pinch for some time, the beach isn't getting less gray. So, reduce the scheule and make the survioring regattas as hassle free and enjoyable as possible and listen to those that attend regattas they are the ones that are heavily invested.