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Grafham Catamaran Open Meeting 24/25 October 2009 - Competitors are advised that entry to this years event is by PRE-ENTRY ONLY. Only entries received by Thursday 22 October 2009 will be accepted and there will be none accepted on the day. Entry forms can be downloaded from the web site .
RobBowen wrote:Don't know if anyone can help me, but the 2009 NORs on Grafhams website seems to be a dead link. Any ideas on how to download an entry from please?
Rob
Hi Rob
Yes the website has been giving problems lately. It is being worked on and should be up soon. Long before the cut off date for entries (22 Oct)
Cheers
Bob
Bob Carter wrote:
Hi Rob
Yes the website has been giving problems lately. It is being worked on and should be up soon. Long before the cut off date for entries (22 Oct)
Cheers
Bob
Computer problems , pesky things computers personally I don't trust 'em. At work I'm the only one using pen and paper for my appointments diary its not lost them once unlike my colleagues.
Martin S.
(University of Kent, Computing Service, PC Desktop Administrator)
Ex Sprint 15 Webmaster
Ex Seasalter SC Webmaster
RYA Regional Race Officer (South East Region) (Expired)
RYA Club Race Coach (Expired)
RYA Dinghy Sailing Instructor (Expired)
Andrew Hannah wrote:On the face of it, pre-entry is a good idea. It's a good for the caterers.
At my own club, I have always found a caterer will ask the same question, "How many do you expect"?
I say, "Er.....well....er.....er......it depends on the weather! If there's a gale, there won't be any. If it's fine, you can expect 40".
Caterers don't like flexibility.
Hi Andrew,
I would prefer for us not have to pre enter but the issue is one of getting the entries correctly entered in an event of some complexity. ( 180 entries on 7 starts). Last year the Sprint 15s chose to only do 5 races, while the other fleets did 6 races. The idea was we could have an early prizegiving and let our travellers go home before the mass prizegiving for the other fleets. In actual fact when we pressed the button for our results the PYs were not having effect. It took some trawling through the results on Sailwave by computer hotshot & GWSC commodore (Hilary Talbot) to find they had been entered incorrectly and lots had to be re-entered. This took some time so we did not get away early but did act to debug the problems before other results of other fleets were calculated. Many of these also had to be re-entered so their results were also slow to emerge.
So in the spirit of " lessons learned" we are taking only pre-entries so that Sailwave can be set up correctly and the entries are entered so the results work first time. We (the Sprint 15s) will be still only doing 5 of the 6 races to see if we can get our cunning plan to work and let our travellers go home early.
Cheers
Bob
I intend to come along again this year. I really enjoyed last year apart from the delayed prize giving.
Having done the East Coast Piers Race results for several years (only ~70 competitors on 2 starts, but complicated by a fair number of extracted results and spot prizes) I appreciate the difficulty and stress involved in generating results with impatient and expectant competitors in the wings - especially when the numbers aren't adding up.
I had to leave Grafham before the prize giving in the end, quite frustrated I would admit but holding nothing against the club or the event. These things happen. Its no fun for the competitors who are kept waiting for results, but its considerably worse for the poor souls trying to sort them out.
Interesting to hear the reasons behind the delay. I think it would have calmed things a little in the bar if folks had been told what the problem was once it had been discovered (Perhaps this happened after i left?). I think there were suspicions the times/positions brought off the water by the ROs were somehow suspect, confused, lost(!) or wrong. As a result there was some fairly aggressive, even accusatory, scrutiny of the results when they did start to appear.
On the pre-entry thing:
Not sure we'd get away with it for ECPR because the race is quite weather dependent, particularly for less experienced crews, so a reasonable proportion of competitors hedge their bets until the weekend arrives. I can see it makes sense from the point of view of smooth running of the event however - and that benefits everyone.
It will be interesting to see if entry numbers are affected. I hope not. It won't put me off.
I assume the club will stand robustly by the entry deadline and not relax the rules when Saturday morning arrives.
Finally,
I can find a generic 2009 entry form on the Grafham website, but no NOR or specific info on the Cat Open at the moment. I'm guessing its not possible to enter at the moment, or I'm looking in the wrong place.
Cheers
David
David Ball
Sprint 15 1923 "Two's Complement"
Marconi SC
As stated above the Grafham open will be PRE ENTRY only this year; please enter by Thursday 22nd October. Club will accept fax entries to 01480 812206 with followup by phone to pay on switch CC. You can also enter via email as long as you sign it to admin@grafham.org
First race warning signal not before 11:57 Saturday. Usual meal will be available and sailing video's will be shown on the big screen in the evening
Fully understand the requirement for Pre-Entry and basically having planed to attend an event I am going what ever the breeze conditions, if only to see my southern chums!
On the Pre-Entry form I have stated that I will be sailing my prefferred option of Sprint 15 Sport, however, if the forecast on the day is very light breeze conditions will I be able to change to UNA?
Appreciate that at small events such as CSC this is not an issue for the event admin team but this may be an issue for larger events such as Grafham.
Fully understand the requirement for Pre-Entry and basically having planed to attend an event I am going what ever the breeze conditions, if only to see my southern chums!
On the Pre-Entry form I have stated that I will be sailing my prefferred option of Sprint 15 Sport, however, if the forecast on the day is very light breeze conditions will I be able to change to UNA?
Just for clarrification on the day.
Cheers
YaHoo!
Hi Ray,
Yes I'm sure that you will be able to but I'll check it out with the office.
Cheers
Bob
Have put my entry in the post and just hope Frank has been able to unbolt the Team trophy from the wall at GWSC so it can come to its rightful home at Shanklin.
Just been informed by JP that we have 6 boats from Beaver now coming for the event. We are working on one more hopefully 7. Lets hope its a brill weekend