[gpsbug] Racing on Sundays
- From: "geotatum2" <geotatum2@xxxxxxx>
- To: <gpsbug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 21:35:54 -0500
Hey John and Fellow skippers,
I am sorry I did not make the Wednesday WSSC meeting to discuss matters
affecting this up and coming sailing year. I was in fact out of town and
didn't even know the meeting took place until I came back home, though I
knew the meeting was to be scheduled and I had made plans to make it as
soon as the meeting was posted.
Last year I had a hard time racing Saturdays, primarily because of my
job and the condition of my sailboat.
Many people expect a lot of me, including my family, my church, my
community, my employer, and me. At 40 years old, I find myself pulled a
million directions. But I lead my family and I skipper my boat.
Last season I had to work a shift that prevented me from sailing with
the WSSC group. But over the course of the year I proved my worth and
asserted myself at my job in such a way that I had agreement that I
could have Saturday mornings off to race my sailboat with the WSSC
group. To help pick up the emotional bill with my family for taking an
entire weekend day to race in the James for most of the year, and for
reasons related to my beliefs, I moved my family to a new church (one
that I felt a part of) and became involved with the church community.
I maintain a heavy, powerful and excellent aux. engine that empowers me
run to the start line at 6.5 knots. But like the boys out of Leeward
Marina or Deep Creek Marina, or maybe the upper end of the Pagan, it is
still an hour and a half run to the Pagan River starting pins.
Changing race day from the old Saturday standard to a new Sunday time
frame really hoses me up. If I decide to try to campaign my boat on
Sundays, at the very least, I lose my helmsman, my son and daughter as
crew, and the men and women I met in my new church community who wanted
to try out racing with me. In fact, I have to quit much of my new
involvement with my church. And I have to undo the other job and family
related compromises in my life that I have made (time and value
expensive), which afforded me Saturday mornings to race my boat at my
liberty.
Now maybe I am in a unique spot. Maybe my crewmen are all odd birds too.
Maybe working men who have to plan a year in advance to earn the time to
race don't really belong to sailing. Perhaps the committee that
represents our club that met with John on that important WSSC meeting
has chosen a new race time and race day that will yield more new boats
and more new crew than those who we may lose to this change. I do NOT
pretend to know the fleet impact of the decisions reached in this
meeting. All I really know is how these changes have affected my boat
and crew, and it will be a tough new price for me to pay for a sport I
love very much, right at the point I thought I had won an open
invitation to the game.
The fleet is now split. We have five skippers who were committed this
year to making nearly every race based on the old Saturday Schedule.
These men are Richard Cassell, John Edwards, John Wandling, Steve
Butkis, and me (George Tatum). I trust all these core sailors all gave
input in this decision to change to racing from Saturdays to Sundays,
except me. But if NOT, the loss of two or three boats out of a five boat
core fleet makes for a smaller fleet.
And at the same time we are splitting the fleet in two classes:
spinnaker and non-spinnaker. And we are reestablishing ratings and we
are changing our racing start and finish formula itself. That is a lot
of change to deal with all at once. For a sport that is so expensive in
time, money, and commitments to other people, it would be nice to feel
like changes to things working well happened rarely, and I at least had
an opportunity to plead a case for a an old pattern before it was
changed into something completely new. Our mutual problem is to field
the largest fleet of competitive boats that is practical. It is not
clear to me that the recent decisions accomplish that objective.
Therefore, I think we should poll the fleet of potential sailors to
determine the following:
* Who would prefer to race on Saturday
* Who would prefer to race on Sunday
* Who would race "faithfully" Sunday if that is the choice
* Who would race "faithfully" on Saturday if that is the choice
* Who will not race on a regular basis if the choice is Saturday
* Who will not race on a regular basis if the choice is Sunday
It is an experience in my life that folks occasionally take something
that is working (more or less) and move it to a new venue that proves to
be a disaster. I think that before we make such a move we should be
careful to confirm that this change has the support of the maximum
number of potential participants, since that is what will determine
whether we have a viable race fleet, or dissolve into oblivion as did
the WYC fleet, some 30 years ago.
Sincerely,
George
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