Charter Fee for Laser Worlds

Matt

New Member
Can someone please explain why charter fees for Laser worlds are going nuts?

Terrigal 2008 - 300 GBP
Brisbane 2012 - 495 AUD
Muscat 2013 - 575 GBP
Hyeres - ?
Kingston 2015 - 1500 USD (1250 hull and spars + 250 foils)
 
If you're talking about the masters worlds in Kingston, I have a boat that I could charter you. Send me an email [email protected]. If it's the laser standard worlds I guess that doesn't help since it's a supplied boats event.
 
Can someone please explain why charter fees for Laser worlds are going nuts?

Terrigal 2008 - 300 GBP
Brisbane 2012 - 495 AUD
Muscat 2013 - 575 GBP
Hyeres - ?
Kingston 2015 - 1500 USD (1250 hull and spars + 250 foils)
I'd love to hear the answer to this one as well.
 
Because they can. Because people will pay. Because for many people it isn't a whole lot of money to race at a World Championship.

Global
Racing
Event
Equals
Demand
 
LP/LPE will supply the boats and they aren't in the business for fun...
 
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The entry fee, I think $400, obviously seems high. However when you consider the cost of travel, hotel, meals and such, it wouldn't be enough to discourage me from going if I really wanted to go. The $1500 charter fee would be a deal-killer if I couldn't drive to the event with my own boat.
 
Can someone please explain why charter fees for Laser worlds are going nuts?

Terrigal 2008 - 300 GBP
Brisbane 2012 - 495 AUD
Muscat 2013 - 575 GBP
Hyeres - ?
Kingston 2015 - 1500 USD (1250 hull and spars + 250 foils)
Does anybody know how much of this goes to LP and how much to ILCA?
 
The entry fee, I think $400, obviously seems high. However when you consider the cost of travel, hotel, meals and such, it wouldn't be enough to discourage me from going if I really wanted to go. The $1500 charter fee would be a deal-killer if I couldn't drive to the event with my own boat.

I think an average budget for someone from Australia to participate would be around the $7,000 AUD mark.
That would include the airfare, charter, precharter, regatta transport and accommodation and meals.

A 10 race series would cost approximately $700 per race. An extremely good reason in my opinion to not get a OCS or DSQ.

In terms of Masters sailing I can race Brett Beyer and many others that travel to every Worlds religiously, for $60 ($10 per race) plus transport, right here in Australia. If I wanted to I could race Mark Bethwaite every Saturday and then head back to my Club and race Vanessa Dudley and Rob Lowndes on the Sunday. Every weekend for 6 months. There may be less depth at the very front of the fleet but the racing is still quite good.

Look at the lack of sailors from Canada and the USA at the Brisbane Masters Worlds. They clearly did the numbers on the cost of attending that event and came up with much the same conclusion as I have. Particularly for the younger sailors in the Masters divisions. Note the lack of Apprentices. I doubt that Masters sailing will ever see a resurgence in numbers as Apprentices get older and become more financially secure as we now live in a world of permanent insecurity.

I am not saying the Worlds are too expensive by the way. It is what it is. You want to to compete internationally, it will cost you.
 
I'm a couple hours away from Kingston and an apprentice. The other day, I counted how many apprentice standards were registered and i was somewhat deflated. I'm scratching my head as to why i would take a week's vacation, spend the money on accommodation, new sail, entry fee, etc to race against 15 or so other apprentices. I can't even imagine having to charter and add the plane ticket price to the whole week. If the apprentices start on one line with 15 other boats, i'll be really disappointed. The whole reason of racing in the worlds, for me, is the competition and a big big fleet. Now, having said that, i'm sure i'll have a great time and make a bunch of new friends and enjoy the unique experience. Maybe it's time a parallel organization to the laser class set up charters as I'm sure LP wouldn't be happy if the laser class promoted charters other than their own...
 
At world level events, each age categoy is a separate start. I believe they also split it by Radial/full size. So yes, you would be sailing against 15 boats. Probably less.

I was disappointed they didn't race age categories together and apply a handicap as is usually done in US/Canada masters' events. Granted they would still need multiple starts with ~500 boats.
 
The apprentice age group unfortunately falls in a terrible stage of people's live. People trying to forge a career, mortgages, young kids or older kids needing to be taken to sports, it's never going to be a big fleet, and to some extent the above impacts on the open fleet. The strength of the class will always be in youth, masters and older, where people have more time and money (even if it's their parents).
 
We have a once in a lifetime opportunity here in South Australia. 2017 Laser Masters Worlds in Adelaide. One hour drive for the Capt. Time to start building a hiking bench...
 
The charter fees for the Radial Youth Worlds (also in Kingston this summer) have been posted.

Charter boat and foils fees:
Regatta (14 – 20 August, 7 days)

  • Charter boat: US$665
  • Charter foils: US$175
Its a 7 day event and I assume its the same boats from the other Worlds events there in July.
Maybe that's all they will be worth after being used for the two previous events? :)
 
Can someone please explain why charter fees for Laser worlds are going nuts?

Terrigal 2008 - 300 GBP
Brisbane 2012 - 495 AUD
Muscat 2013 - 575 GBP
Hyeres - ?
Kingston 2015 - 1500 USD (1250 hull and spars + 250 foils)

The most insane thing about the numbers are a boat in Australia costs $9000, and they would lease one for $495 AUD. It looks like the cost in the US is about $6500. So where do they get off charging $1500.
 

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