US Sailing Championship Committee

Todd, Dave, John, anyone with budget issues.

I urge you to speak with Kevin Rejda? of PBYC who I believe will be the Regatta Chair AND

Eric White, the F16 class chairman and proponent for this regatta option.n Eric is a voting member on the championship committee and participated in the budget discussion.

Those are the people who will be marketing the regatta or answering your questions.

Bert Rice has handed over the control in this process because he is chair of the committee.

Trust me... choices were made and I can tell you that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those choices were made by the sailors that you know personally ... our names are on the set of minutes. NOT the nameless and faceless big shots of USSA who are trying to

fleece the sailors

Final point, The committee has not finalized anything yet... as you would see in the notes. In the 3 or 4 weeks of this committee we have ginned up out of NOTHING or worked with two clubs to get proposals for a fall event around two US world championships and 3 or 4 national championships

Soooo... Back to the big picture FOR THE FUTURE
What is an elite sailor Todd.... What is the Multihull championship about?

Help me out...

Just to be clear - I do not represent US Sailing in this matter and I'm not involved in the planning or execution of the event. I'm just making an observation. US Sailing owns the trophy. They own the name of the championship.

I think the word elite needs to be dropped. Elite sailors are Olympians and world champions, as stated before.
But what made an Alter Cup champ before was someone who had won in their area through qualifiers then beat others who had done the same at the Alter Cup finals, on EQUAL platforms. I'm not sure how this can be achieved equitably while using your own boat.Sounds as if this has turned into a plain old one design regatta, just for a really nice trophy.The previous qualifiers could have been won on any platform, thus doing so you may beat the rockstar of the chosen platform (F-16 in this example) on the boat your good on. From the sound of it,with an open invite,now he can show up and whip you on your chartered boat because he knows the platform. In the past he couldn't be there because you BEAT him in the qualifiers. I must be missing something because this seems to me to diminish the whole process.

Fair enough! (I think if you win your NA's... you are the elite sailor of that class in North America.)

To these 10 elite area sailors we will then add 10 additional elite sailors who are NA champs or at least top 10% from lots of OD classes or other categories.

Well I agree about the OD regatta and the nice trophy... don't understand the equity bit.

Ah ha..
Well no... He would have been invited had he won his Class NA's (elite sailor) OR he could have petitioned and the criteria are published on how the petitions were evaluated. Now ... if he did not care... he would not have spent his time or money to participate and use the charter boat.

I must be missing something because this seems to me to diminish the whole process.

Thanks
OK.... fact of life... we are in a BYOB championship period.
What should the championship look like???
We have 2 spin classes. 4 sloop classes and 4 Single handed classes.... All of whom hold NAs.

How would you put together a BYOB championship?

So your saying there are 10 NA champions? Because I stated that your area (their are 10 according to you) hotshot got beat by you. There is only one NA champion. Quit being obtuse. As far as how to put together your BYOB championship, does it really matter? No matter how you do it, it will carry less prestige than the nationals of the class that you use that year. It's just a regular regatta now. Why overthink it? I'll go ahead and answer that

Because it's what Mark does and that's why we love him.

It was special because of what it was on rotated equal boats, it just won't be as special now, no biggie, just move on and accept that. I see the logic of why it was put so close to the F-16 Nats but I think you may have shot yourself in the foot on that one. I agree with Ding on this. Maybe it would be better to start fresh sans USS, even with a new trophy if need be. Like the mess with the Little America's Cup, 18 hts and Seacliff. I see alot of similarities.
Cliff notes: It's just a regular one design regatta now ,put it on as you would any other.

It sounds to me like the real problem here is trying to find a sponsor to pay for the use of 10 brand new boats to use for a

traditional

Alter Cup.

In the past, the boat manufacturers themselves have supplied the boats, but how about going outside that box, to someone like Red Bull Racing, or Coke, or Budwiser, etc. to see if they would be willing to pony up about $20,000 for the charter of 10 new cats and get exclusive advertising rights, magazine coverage, film at 11, etc.? (I'm guessing a charter fee of $2,000 per boat, for 10 new boats, but you get the idea.)

Has anyone at US Sailing tried to contact any of the Big Name sponsors, ala NASCAR, to sponsor the;

US Multihull Racing Championship

? Get ESPN to cover it, etc. Ask Jimmy Buffett to host it, at his new hotel on the beach up there in the panhandle. Do a Margaritaville theme. He can sell all his Land Shark beer, Margaritaville Tequila and a whole bunch of t-shirts too. http://www.margaritavillehotel.com/

Or tie it into the America's Cup or something, ask Larry Ellison of Oracle if he wants in, give him and Spithill a spot too! Or make him the Event Charimen, or something. $20K is pocket change for Larry. They blow that every time they rip a jib or crack a board on an AC 45.

The manufacturers have been more than generous in the past, but maybe it's time to find some 'new money' to sponsor this, if we want to keep it only for the Elite, ie. the National Champions from each class, vs. each other.

OR...tack it on to the end of Tradewinds and only allow the top 3 finishers from each class there to participate...but...we'd still have to find new boats, so...? Gonna need some money to charter them. Still going to have to find a sponsor.

Hey Timbo,

That is exactly the attitude I came into this with in October (it's not that much money). However, at that time, our numbers were in the $7,000 to $10,000 range, and have changed considerably since then (according to the team that did the research).

Having said that, even at the lower numbers, no one was ever able to pull this money together in the past, which is why the H/J fund was getting tapped to the tune of $7,000 per year for the past few cycles.

(... JW, feel free to refrain from adding a lament of past sponsor issues here...)

In 2011, the rules changed for sponsorship (as reported by Jack, Liz, Shannon and backed up by Jill, the doors are open to whatever we want to do, barring direct conflicts), but again, no one has come forward with big bucks to pull this off.

There's always hope for 2013, but someone needs to step up right away to make that happen.

And, even if we did pull that off, it doesn't solve the problem of raising attendance and being more inclusive, which are major goals of US Sailing, and supported by our survey.

Fortunately, we have some pretty open-minded folks on the committee, or we wouldn't have gotten this far for 2012...

Mike

When you say someone needs to step up right away...um...last time I got some sponsorship, I had to go to them and make the case that it would be worth their time and money, via publicity and brand exposure, etc. Has anyone called Larry Ellison? He already knows what a catamaran is, and should quickly understand exactly what it is we are trying to do, and you can sell it as 'gaining public awareness which will increase interest in his upcoming AC races in SFO..." or what have you. Has anyone called him? And or Jimmy Buffett? Tell him Larry Ellison wants to rent out his new hotel for a weekend of catamaran racing, etc.

These guys understand marketing, it shouldn't be too hard a pitch, easier still if you tell them they can race in it too! (give them a 'sponsor spot' and then try not to hit them)

Yes... 10 slots were reserved for classes, builders etc... all supposed to be top shelf (elite) sailors... the total number 20 was essential to make the rotation relegation scheme work.... So... 10 area qualifiers.. passing the bid down to the first guy who would accept plus a bunch of NA champions... passing the bid down to the first guy who would go.. plus some special catagories and youth.

Rotating on equal tunable high performance boats, makes this event special... really? HOW do you think this makes it special? Most of the survey thought it a real problem that they would only race half the time while they rotated boats...special is not the term they would use.

With a prestigious trophy that hopefully makes this a national event.

Forget about 2011-12... We are playing catch up...It's a pretty good job to have plan A and B. We are done with that issue....

So... now you get the picture... WHAT can you create that makes the US Multihull championship special?

Right, Timbo. By

someone

I am referring to a volunteer, not a genie to pop out of a bottle with a check in hand.

Sounds like you'd be the perfect guy for the job. When can you get this done?

Mike

I'm flying to Dubai on Thursday, if I see Larry or Jimmy I'll tell them they want in on this big beach party! I did bring the Coral Reefer Band back from Sydney last year, if I knew, I would've mentioned it to them.

USS has promotion of the Olympics as its primary purpose? If this is true and Olympians rig and tune their own boats then tuning is part of the discipline.

I'll risk being labeled a heretic: NOT permitting individual teams to tune their own boats was a major flaw of the old system.

Tuning is part of the discipline, tuning is good.

Go ahead and try talking to these people for sponsership and see how far you get even Johm Lovell had a hard time getting sponcership for the Olympics he paid for it mostly out of his pocket. I tried and got the same thing, most of our money is already tied up in NASCAR and there is no television coverage so there not interested in just throughing money away regardless of how much they have on us. We don't matter to them Hell give them a call I'm sure that Bert won't mind, neither will anyone else and you will be the hero that saved us all and the campionship ! ! ! !
And tuning does matter a boat tuned to your crew wieght is always going to faster, that is the beauty of equal boats it's up to the team not your boat and the best team will win not the team that shows up with the best tuned boat for there crew wieght. Give Ideas not critizium that is what this thread is for. So donate your boat and let them tune 10 the same and let the games begin ! ! ! ! !

Thanks!!!

So donate your boat and let them tune 10 the same and let the games begin ! ! ! ! !

NOW THERE IS A POSSIBLE SOLUTION!!

Planning is a year plus out... The events are run by a yacht club... Would you promise to lend your boat to a club (fully insured) and persuade your OD fleet to do the same?

Here's my take on getting sponsorship money. When I talked with the VP of Marketing at Delta Air Lines about throwing some money my way for new sails, he said he would rather spend a whole lot more money, to sponsor an EVENT, vs. a single individual. Why? Because at an Event, they put up banners and put their stickers on ALL the boats, etc.

Look no further than the

Audi Melges 20 Championships

. http://www.melges20.com/

Audi didn't sponsor one person, they sponsored the Entire EVENT.

Also, I think I saw some big mono-race sponsored by VW, and then there's the Heineken Cup in St. Maarten. http://www.heinekenregatta.com/

Or the Mount Gay Rum regattas. http://www.sailbarbados.com/events_MG.html

Or the Rolex Regattas: http://www.rolexcupregatta.com/index2.php

That's the direction this needs to go, in my opinion.
The sponsors want visability, they want top billing, so give it to them.

Make it a huge beach party for the spectators, beach volly ball, a spectator fleet of big cats, maybe some Hobie Wave rentals off the beach for the on-lookers, stuff like that.

If I were king, here's what I would do. I'd get someone huge to sponsor a week long event, but it would really be two 3 day events. The first 3 days would be a big all classses regatta, which would serve as the Nationals for All cat classes, ie. you run the A's, the F18's, the F16's, the Hobie 16's, the Waves, etc. all at once, on 3 separate courses of course, but everyone all in one general location, big parties every night, like the mono guys do at Key West Race Week.

At the end of the first 3 day Nationals event, the top 3 from each class get to then race in the Alter Cup regatta, wich would be held on 10 (or 20) chartered boats, like our traditional Alter Cup, but the event sponsor is paying for the charter fee. The rest of us can hang out and watch, or maybe have a side regatta, or a Pro-Am, or a

Get a newbie out

type regatta, on a separate course, while the Alter Cup is going on for the last 3 days.

It would be like Tradewinds, where all the classes get together, and then it would be the Alter Cup, where just the top crews from each class race.

1) We have a sponsor that US Sailing negotiated.. Rolex. so for this championship... not an option.

2) What you are talking about requires a full time promoter... with some staff at times.. Pay grade is $0.00 unless you get paid by the sponsors.

So do you know anyone.... (other then Mr or Ms Somebody)

The larger point is... Check out the NOODS or Premire Key West... for this kind of professional model and see if you like it.

A private money-making organization does that promotional and organizational work... It recruits volunteers and their Yacht clubs in partnership to put on the events and negotiates the cost of real services. The price of the event is double what the same regatta organized by the volunteer RSA with the same yacht clubs and volunteers 3 months later charges.

NOODS are special!

If Sailing World did not do the work.... the regatta in my area would not happen... The organizational load is huge and unseen. Beyond that... the same regatta by any other name... Not Special!

So.... this gets to Todd's gripe.... blah blah blah... the regatta is not special....

What makes a regatta special then?

There is already a very big check written for the event. More than one, in fact. It doesn't reach the venue or the sailors, or in deference to Mike, it hasn't in the past. That won't change, no matter who is writing the check.

Don't get me wrong - great ideas and it is a good idea to seek additional sponsorship, but you need to be aware and comply with the current structure, and understand that much of any sponsorship raised is used to keep the lights on in Rhode Island.

Before I waste my time sending an email to Jimmy Buffet about sponsoring such an event, how many of you would show up for a Margaritaville Beach Party, (really a cat regatta, in disguise) to be held off the beach in front of his new hotel in Pensacola?

I would like it to be for all classes, maybe to serve as their Nationals, like Tradewinds, but in the summer (or fall) instead of January?

And then tack on the Alter Cup after that, unless US Sailing has an

issue

with us using that name and they not getting all the entry fees. In which case we could simply call it the Margaritaville Catamaran Championship.

CRAM ran cat fight for years and then handed it over to CRAW... same idea.

Hobie Div 11 does this already at Wildwood New Jersey with camping on the beach etc... a real throw back kind of thing.

Beach party's need the core of volunteers to make it happen... this core of volunteers tend to be different then the core that puts on a NA's. So, depends on what you got!

Would I be interested as a OD class NAs.... probably not. Ask the Hobie class if their MEGA events are worth it.
Its in the class's best interest to focus exclusively on what the class is about. You don't want to share your NA's on the water unless you can't afford it. You want all the sailors to eat drink and party as a class... having people wander off to see old friends in other classes dilutes the

class

Besides that, the resources you need get very very hard to find.

As an individual.. No!.... If I am inclined, I budget one NA's/ big event a season..... I would support my class event because that is the event that will be there next year and the year after and the year after until it isn't.

Would US championships be interested... Doubtful... One shot beach party.... not a good mix with a 25 year old trophy. The US championships searched and searched for a date BECAUSE IT SHOULD NOT CONFLICT with any OD class's NAs.. They need to be able to participate if they want...

John Williams has led you to believe that US Sailing is making money on this gig.. False!
US Sailing does not collect your entry fee... If you want to make a killing because you sell sponsorships like crazy and can pocket the entry fee.... Have at it.

If you want to loose your butt because you are giving back.... have at it...

The sailors... on those minutes approve a bottom line entry fee taking everything into consideration. It is the clubs business to make it work.

What is an Elite Sailor?
What's special about Championship?
What do individuals want of a US Multihull Championship?
What do OD classes want of a US Multihull Championship?

Best I have heard so far is... 10 owners to loan their boats. Does that fly???

Mark, have you been to Tradewinds? One of the reasons I LOVE it, is because I can meet and party with ALL the cat sailors, from every class and from all over the country, not just the ones from my little class. And the Hobie 16 guys even let me talk to their Chicks!

I also drive across the street to the Islander, just to see what the A cat guys are up to when I'm down there. It's all good. I just wish we were all staying in the same location for a bigger party when it's all over.

I think Catamaran Racing's biggest problem is Money, of course, but if we were to consolidate our many different Nationals into one big regatta, I think we would all benefit and might be able to draw in a big money sponsor, vs. a whole bunch of small

Nationals

, one for each different class, spread all over the place.

Tradewinds, No... I am sure people love it... but it's too far a drive for a party/regatta.... YMMV.

If you could get your summer cat fight type party at Maragertiville.. you could get sailors to give it a tumble but it would be a regional event. Do you need another regional event?

I will flip it around... would you drive to American Yacht Club's 2 day HPDO... for a OD regatta with 110 boats last year and a banquet? (just F18's bother to play)

By and large... it's the SINGLE event a year NA Championship that gets sailors (who are so inclined) to strap on wheels and get to the regatta.
AND THAT IS A POTENTIAL ISSUE FOR US MULTIHULL CHAMPIONSHIP
In Todds terms... it's nothing special....

What makes a regatta special?
What makes an elite Sailor?
What should your OD class do about the US Multihull Championsips?

Color me flabbergasted. Mark, I only post in this topic when something needs to be corrected. US Sailing absolutely makes money on the Championships. Every one of them. They keep over half the sponsorship cash, and charge the host $50 per sailor. It was $25 per sailor when I started volunteering in 1999.

Do you have facts to refute this? I have several years worth of budgets - actual numbers on paper from hosts.

Edit - and I have no problem with US Sailing making money.

We had a tough enough time addressing boat maintenance between rotations and getting rotations fast (10 minutes on the beach was a great rotation)...imagine the delay if everyone was re-tuning their spreader rake, diamond wire tension, mast rake, etc. etc....Additionally, in the case of charter boats, what if someone made that adjustment and exceeded a setpoint, damaged the boat, and cost us a boat in our rotation. It just wouldn't be practical in the old scenario to allow the teams to make that level of adjustment.

The goal was to take most of

the boat

out of the equation and put the result at the hand of the sailors. A range of adjustments were usually established (light to heavy crew weight, light to heavy wind) and adjustments were put in the middle of this range. Sailor adjustments were pretty much limited to mainsheet cleat angle and trap height.

Rolex already sponsors all US Sailing Championships in addition to other sponsors...which, in the past, has limited any other sponsorship the individual event itself can garner. I have not been part of the sponsorship conversation as of late, so am not qualified to comment on the current arrangement.

+1
And Mark wants me to DONATE my boat for use. How'bout F*** Off and call Obama ,he'll give you a bailout, I'm sure.You've got alot of nerve Mark. Per your response to my last post, you either need to work on your reading skills or your spin/bullshite skills are already honed, I can't figure out which it is.

NASCAR doesn't try to

take the boat out of the equation

. Tuning is an essential part of sailing or any other type of racing.

Equally NASCAR doesn't have drivers change cars; the Olympics doesn't require a boat swap.

Maybe sprinters should change shoes between heats, pole vaulters exchange poles, tennis players exchange rackets...

Hmm alsail.... might be tougher then you think to get people to lend their boat...

Just as a point of reference, at the Championship of Champions that I sailed in last fall, ALL the boats (20 Flying Scots) were donated by club members (Dallas Corinthian). In return, the donors received significantly discounted new sails (main, jib, spin) with only 4 days of sailing on them. All the boats were set up more-or-less identically (some of the control layouts were different). Everybody raced each boat once (in every race). Rotations were made on the water, utilizing a floating dock that was towed out to the racing area each day.

Re. the tuning and rotating boats, if we got enough boats so that each team had one, or limit the amount of teams to only 10, then you wouldn't have to share boats, ie. no rotations, so each team could tweak their prebend and mast rake to their liking, for the entire regatta.

You'd get in a lot more races per day without having to rotate boats after every race as well.

Hey, I'll gladly 'donate' my boat, for a new mainsail!