mathew said...Roo said...
A month could be a specified period or even two weeks, why is that any different to the time period Al's fortnight runs in or the week Speedweek runs. They always seem to get some wind. How about Matt's month of speed? Great initiative by Markus and the ISA/ISWC to support National Championships using GPS.
Al's is a good choice as it lasts for 15 days or thereabouts. The biggest problem is that the wind, while being quite strong (+35kn), is usually from the wrong direction, with very few people doing better than high 30's.
I seem to remember laying in a hospital on the Friday of the last week of Al's October event when a bunch of people jumped over me and into the 2007 top ten
with some world class speeds in the high 40's!
The first two weeks of October is an excellent time for an event like a National championship for divisions up to 500m. I would certainly include the 5 x 10 sec event though and would favor ranking the Championship on that division. All the other divisions can be ranked as well of course.
I guess the main question is.....Why?
There has to be a compelling reason to actually run an event and a compelling reason for people to enter it. Since there would be little extra cost to include ISWA status, that is not really a disincentive, but what are the advantages?
Some possible ones that come to mind:
- Sailors can gain ISWA seeding and that may help some gain entry into other ISWA events.
Is this incentive? Probably not for many, given the enormous cost of travel to actually go to those other events. There are probably only two or three guys at most who may take advantage of this and one or two of them may not need any more credentials for entry anyhow.
- The sailor who wins the event can call them self the 'Australian Speed Champion'. Not a lot of incentive for many of us, especially given that we already have a ranking in GPS-SS and it is pretty obvious who the "champion" is.
- To enable sailors to sail in an event that gives them an official world ranking in ISWA.
Nope, this is not an incentive either because unless we use a WSSRC approved timing system (and observer) I would imagine there can be no inclusion in the world rankings (and of course no 'official' national records set).
Let me stress that I am not against the concept at all. I am just trying to find some reasons to make the extra effort to run a ISWA sanctioned event.
For me, the big incentive may come when we can have a practical and inexpensive GPS timing system that satisfies the WSSRC requirements and may also attract some of the top international stars to make the journey with a chance at setting National, or even world records and improving their world rankings.
Any other ideas?
We do know who the best are.
