Steve
I think to be fair the Grand Prix series in the first year was a success.... we had bucket loads of prizes that got shared round to anybody making an effort (rather than results) and comprised the best attended events of the season.
The problem was that the willingness of people prepared to travel for over 2 hrs dropped and key members of the historic travelling set left the fleet (to add more sails to their boats) all at the same time and its taken a few years for them to realise their mistake (sorry, come back…).
To put into context the true South at the time only had a handful of boats and only 2 or 3 travelled to odd events. Not exactly a strong base to support national series. The attitude of I'm not travelling because they aren’t travelling to me was rife and we needed to do something.
It worked as people were willing to travel to larger events, albeit the same few… but did mean that events got reasonable numbers even if they were supporting only a few locals.
I think it’s fair to say that the fleet went static for a while, just look at the number of Y&Y reports where 3 or 4 boats were entered over the last couple of years... not exactly the best promotion to sell travelling on a National level.
The GP series attracted sponsors to the fleet that only got involved because of the reduced number of ‘glamour’ events where they could be seen at the largest turnouts for the year. They didn’t really want to be seen at events with less than 15 boats even if that only meant 3 or 4 venues.
Before the GP series you didn't know which were the larger or smaller events. The Series tried to communicate to people which ones may attract the larger turnouts it wasn't really about results. If people were going to make the effort to travel they needed rewarding with a good turnout. If they could only do 4 events they should be able to see which are the best ones. It's ok for those in the know but who would guess that Creeksea would be the largest open year on year ?? Being a GP made people aware that something there was special and made other people go. We could well be at 30+ boats there this year that include woody's that don't get racing at many other events.
Whilst it was a success it was clear that even more of the key travellers such as Titch, Will, Olly, Matt House... I can go on…. were not going to support traveling the following year so the format wasn’t going to work again.
Ivan is sort of in reverse in that he appears to be happy to travel further but the local events (as the boss are very close to him) are meaningful to him that he can't miss one... Perhaps the South need an 'away weekend' once or twice a year and decide amongst themselves which ones to do. But I know that's hard to sort as it means a couple of 'local' events need to be dropped. 8 local events and the Nationals is 20% of all available weekends for the year (inc Xmas etc) and difficult for most.
Unfortunately only having one event a month spread all round the country when boats are spread even further doesn’t provide enough for those who will only travel for an hour or so. I do however think that we could do more to show ecpected turnouts etc. For instance the Inlands is looking like there are only two going if the Forum is to be believed......
Lets hope that the recent splurge in boat sales (new and old) will energise people to chat and travel, but until then a ‘National’ series will still largely comprise the locals and a handful of the same people willing to travel and that's not sustainable.
The bottom line is that until people start to travel again the regional approach has to be the way.
The South is showing new life and starting to look further away and the East has always been there to look at events but it's always going to be a case of.... I might go... depends on the weather... but not many entered.
The structure is there for a GP series (needs 20 boats) and can be 3, 4 or 10 events it just needs people to participate at events and on the forum. Events such as the Inlands and Winters are GP events of sorts and it will be interesting to see if we get the 20 plus turnout they deserve....
Hope that makes sense
Ian
