You would reply with that, indeed.
Okay I admit that I forgot that the last Tiger Worlds had been in 2003
But lets look at the points entered into the discussion.
Free shipping ? Now that is trully something.
I think it was on offer for the 2003 Worlds as well. Although then the follow provision was included :
(The out bound and inbound land transport, port and custom dues and bonds will the competitors responsibility)
In the shipping I've done I found that these items easily make up halve the total transport costs.
Is the same clause included this time ? Just checking if "free" really means "free".
I would also like to come back to "strong following world wide" and "this one (2004 worlds) will be very well attended"
For arguments sake here are the Hobie Tiger 2003 Worlds results :
http://www.hobieworlds.com/tiger2003/results/Hobie-Tiger_overall.html33 competitors in total
Breakdown.
8 Europeans (2 Hobie factory teams Booth/Booth (Ned) and Colby/Camenish (Sui)+ 1 Ger ; 3 Fra : 1 GBR : 1 Pol
9 US + Pur teams
11 Australians
5 Asian (malaysia, Phillipines, Hong Kong) and South African teams
18 charter boats from Australia.
Sadly I couldn't retrieve the 2000 Lake Garda results from the web. Thanks to the F18 class I could find the 2001 Hobie Tiger worlds results
89 at Hobie Tiger Worlds Lake Garda 2001;
Compare this to :
153 at 2004 F18 worlds (Unlimited participation; Puntala Italy)
102 at 2003 F18 Worlds (limited; Kokzijde Bel)
106 at 2002 F18 Worlds (limited; Travemunde Ger)
89 at 2001 F18 Worlds (? - Poole Uk)
140 at 2000 F18 Worlds (Unlimited - Erquy France)
Sure F18 stays in Europe. And will do so at least for one more 2005 = Hoek van Holland (participation limit = 160)
http://www.f18worlds2005.com/I would assume that it easier to arrange (free) transport for say 25 Americans/Australians/Asians than it would be to arrange for Ohhh 130 Europeans.
I leave it to the reader to judge wether staying in Europe is a wise choice or not.
Besides wouldn't it be smarter businesswise to offer free shipping to the F18 worlds for the Tiger owners ? After all that is where the heat is. Now THAT would set Hobie apart from the other builders.
Wouter
