EC 12 Nationals vs Vic Nationals2004

[fvracer1]

OK, I was trying to stay moot but some of Larry L's comments needed to be addressed. I was race chairman for the 2004 Vic Nats and welcomed the opportunity to chair my first National. Unbeknownst to me at the time was that Victoria ranks their skippers based on Chevron event finishes (national, regional, club-sponsored AMYA (green event). Through the yeoman efforts of the CS, he publishes this list yearly taking the past three year's best finishes to determine your overall rating. Detroit (DMYC) has a very large fleet with all the frequencies reserved. I was approached by the CS and by last year's chairman about instituting a qualifying system to enter the Nationals. Several ideas were discussed yet ultimatly, it was DMYC Exec board that decided the process. It went like this: We limited entries to 40 as it would be a two day event and the logistics of changing crystals was too much for my brain to fathom. We resered the following spots for competitors, top 3 from last year's Nats, each region was supposed to send their regional champion regatta winner, the top 25 " ranked" skippers were asked to register and submit entries by a certain, cutoff date. 10 spots for the local club, and after all that, if there were openings, we would open it up to the general public. Several Detroit members got in during the "open" period as we did not have enough out of town skippers registering and did not want to get into a pissed off membership. The field was filled at 40, but one skipper who promised to attend, never did (Guess who?). To say that DMYC members did not work the event is an out and out fabrication and a retraction for whomever spread that lie is expected. We fed the competitors 2 lunches and a dinner and proivided hats and straps. I have recently purchased an older ec12(Hickman #50- AMYA #575). Although I have not raced an EC12 yet, I would hope to attend the Nationals as I plan on attending the District 4 and the Colonial. To fragment the class would be a disservice in my opinion as the rules in place recognize these older boats per current class rules. I personnally don't think we want to fragment the class by new/old hulls. The performance difference between the two would be like try to pull fly poop out of pepper. Sorry for being so long winded. Frank Vella #575,AC 13, V 921, IOM 233, US1M 43, M 3160

"When the cannon fires, harden up, tack or get out of my way"