gouvernail
Super Opinionated and Always Correct
Definition: weather ignorant
Planning an event that is dependent upon the weather without taking any time to consider the probablility of having appropriate weather.
Examples:
A snow skiing event planned for Florida in August
A water skiing championship in the Sahara
Saturday July 8 and Sunday July 9 Austin Yacht Club is hosting a regatta for centerboard boats.
Sailors have been asked to pay real money, drive from Dallas ( 250 miles) Houston ( 250 miles), Corpus Christi ( 250 miles). and other areas of the state to come play the great game of Centerboard racing.
Look at the wind site link>>>
http://home.kxan.com/wxtech_surfacewinds_tx.asp
Notice how the winds will be nearly dead until 4 pm Saturday and 2 PM Sunday. The visitors are being invited to come bob around in powerboat wakes and roast in 95 F ( 35 C) plus temperatures and the scheduled sailing is already planned to end at 5 on Saturday and noon on Sunday.
I live just one Kilometer from the dock where my boat is stored and I can leave my house and have my Laser rigged and ready to race in about 15 minutes.
Friends from out of town have already asked to sleep in my air conditioned office. I have told them it is extremely unlikely I will bother to bob around in the poorly planned event.
Anyone who has paid attention for a year or more can tell you the winds in this part of the world rarely blow before 3 pm in July.
There is no plan to sail into the evening on Saturday. In fact no race may be started after 5 pm .
There is no plan to sail after the wind picks up on Sunday. No race may start after 12 noon.
I can already assure everyone that many people will be leaving AYC on Sunday promising NEVER to attend another stupid event like this one.
Of course some of those disappointed sailors will quit racing forever.
If only that were the goal of the organizers it would make sense.
This is not a slam at my home club. I bet every one of you remembers attending a similar weather ignorant sailing event.
USSailing sets the finest of examples of this sort of blatant weather ignorant scheduling when it annually invites sailors from all over the world to sail 50% or fewer of the scheduled days in Miami. USSaiing's flagship Olympic Classes regatta is deliberately scheduled with no consideration for the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the competitors on days where no sailing happens.
RUNNING A GREAT REGATTA INCLUDES PLANNING THE WEATHER!!!
Certaiinly no one can guuarantee great weather, but all of us are bright enough to look at the history, ask the locals about the history and make plans based upon reasonable expectations.
The Miami OCR has had crappy sailing weather on a HUGE number of its days for year after year after year. It is well past time to look for a different place or time for the event or just stop holding it.
Or we can continue to set up the same stupid event until nobody shows up.
A few years ago the Fort Worth Boat Club was awarded the St Petersburg Trpophy for holding w J-22 world Championship in September. The competitors spent all but two of the days sitting on shore playing board games, volleyball and frisbee. In the Fort Worth area, there are plenty of dates during the year when sailable winds happen 80% to 90% of the years. USSailing actually gave an organizational prize to a Club whose members hosted an event duing a part of the year when sailing is not lilely to happen at all.
The FWBC did a top notch job of providing food, drinks, entertainment, and race management in the pathetic winds. The FWBC failed miserably at hosting a fun SAILING event.
USSailing is so ignorant of its mission it gave an award for hosting a swell no sailing gathering that had suckwad sailing.
Once again YOU CANNOT HAVE A GREAT RACING EVENT WITHOUT GREAT RACING CONDIDIONS. There is no way we should ever give a regatta management trophy to a club when it fails to manage the weather awareness part of the scheduling
Soooo..
I believe sailing can be lots of fun. If the events are planned with fun sailing as the primary goal, I believe the game will prosper because it is lots of fun and people are drawn to fun..
How do we got ourselves re focused on hosting FUN SAILING events??
How do we stop people from setting up events like the one we are about to wish we had not held in Austin??
Planning an event that is dependent upon the weather without taking any time to consider the probablility of having appropriate weather.
Examples:
A snow skiing event planned for Florida in August
A water skiing championship in the Sahara
Saturday July 8 and Sunday July 9 Austin Yacht Club is hosting a regatta for centerboard boats.
Sailors have been asked to pay real money, drive from Dallas ( 250 miles) Houston ( 250 miles), Corpus Christi ( 250 miles). and other areas of the state to come play the great game of Centerboard racing.
Look at the wind site link>>>
http://home.kxan.com/wxtech_surfacewinds_tx.asp
Notice how the winds will be nearly dead until 4 pm Saturday and 2 PM Sunday. The visitors are being invited to come bob around in powerboat wakes and roast in 95 F ( 35 C) plus temperatures and the scheduled sailing is already planned to end at 5 on Saturday and noon on Sunday.
I live just one Kilometer from the dock where my boat is stored and I can leave my house and have my Laser rigged and ready to race in about 15 minutes.
Friends from out of town have already asked to sleep in my air conditioned office. I have told them it is extremely unlikely I will bother to bob around in the poorly planned event.
Anyone who has paid attention for a year or more can tell you the winds in this part of the world rarely blow before 3 pm in July.
There is no plan to sail into the evening on Saturday. In fact no race may be started after 5 pm .
There is no plan to sail after the wind picks up on Sunday. No race may start after 12 noon.
I can already assure everyone that many people will be leaving AYC on Sunday promising NEVER to attend another stupid event like this one.
Of course some of those disappointed sailors will quit racing forever.
If only that were the goal of the organizers it would make sense.
This is not a slam at my home club. I bet every one of you remembers attending a similar weather ignorant sailing event.
USSailing sets the finest of examples of this sort of blatant weather ignorant scheduling when it annually invites sailors from all over the world to sail 50% or fewer of the scheduled days in Miami. USSaiing's flagship Olympic Classes regatta is deliberately scheduled with no consideration for the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent by the competitors on days where no sailing happens.
RUNNING A GREAT REGATTA INCLUDES PLANNING THE WEATHER!!!
Certaiinly no one can guuarantee great weather, but all of us are bright enough to look at the history, ask the locals about the history and make plans based upon reasonable expectations.
The Miami OCR has had crappy sailing weather on a HUGE number of its days for year after year after year. It is well past time to look for a different place or time for the event or just stop holding it.
Or we can continue to set up the same stupid event until nobody shows up.
A few years ago the Fort Worth Boat Club was awarded the St Petersburg Trpophy for holding w J-22 world Championship in September. The competitors spent all but two of the days sitting on shore playing board games, volleyball and frisbee. In the Fort Worth area, there are plenty of dates during the year when sailable winds happen 80% to 90% of the years. USSailing actually gave an organizational prize to a Club whose members hosted an event duing a part of the year when sailing is not lilely to happen at all.
The FWBC did a top notch job of providing food, drinks, entertainment, and race management in the pathetic winds. The FWBC failed miserably at hosting a fun SAILING event.
USSailing is so ignorant of its mission it gave an award for hosting a swell no sailing gathering that had suckwad sailing.
Once again YOU CANNOT HAVE A GREAT RACING EVENT WITHOUT GREAT RACING CONDIDIONS. There is no way we should ever give a regatta management trophy to a club when it fails to manage the weather awareness part of the scheduling
Soooo..
I believe sailing can be lots of fun. If the events are planned with fun sailing as the primary goal, I believe the game will prosper because it is lots of fun and people are drawn to fun..
How do we got ourselves re focused on hosting FUN SAILING events??
How do we stop people from setting up events like the one we are about to wish we had not held in Austin??