EC 12 class developement

[Stephen Crewes]

Hello Paul . I would like to see perhaps a discussion on how other clubs , countries develope stratagies on how get people to become interested in sailing EC12s in particular. I am certain I could learn a few thing from my fellow EC12 metre salors about what they do.

[Stephen Crewes]

Perhaps I might start the discussion by saying I think we need a game plan on where our group should be going. I think most people want to derive some fun out of there hobby /sport so in some ways they want to maximise their time. It does help if the group has something to do than just sailing/ racing . This could take the forms of regattas. perhaps a state championship or two , maybe to look forward to a visit from somebody from another country, etc. One could get the group to put on fun days , match racings , team racing etc.

Then there is the opposite to all that and just build a fleet in your club, with the various groups within the group like novices , intermediates , etc.

[Doug Wotring]

The White Rose Model yacht Club in Pennsylvania has scheduled fleet racing every other Sunday From April to Oct. Our PA sister club in State College PA sails the alternating Sat to allow people to sail both venues if the wish.

In addition to this, our club sets it schedule around the majority of our "regional 2 day regattas" to allow skippers to compete at the national level without sacrificing their Club series points.

as for getting folks involved......give them the controls and try to let the bug set itself.

Possibly try to have fun sailing or racing at locations were you have alot of passer by trafic.

you can also try to keep older boats around and available for sale at a decent entry level price for those that are interested.....granted even 600.00 for an older boat is alot for someone to drop without being certain they will like it in the long haul.

We have alot of interested people stop by and ask questions......then when they learn for a competitive boat they are going to need to shell out 1000.00 and build it themselves you never see them again.

How big is the AU fleet at present

Best of luck

[Stephen Crewes]

G'day Doug, you make some interesting points.

To answer your query first we have currently 167 early Treasure Tooling clones. About a third are from a flopped Dumas and about two thirds from The Treasure Tooling one. I suppose I should add that we imported a very heavy plug from the Blacks(USA) to do this.
After about 1992 (circa) our fleet started to diminish, through troubles that came on the class.

Which brings us to -day . Today we know where there is about 40 of these boats are. They are starting to race, again in aleast three of our seven states. We have a great Idea where the others are and it is an objective of the national body to find all these boats , to put it back on a 'Even keel' once again , so Doug the job is in front of us and we do need ideas(like yours) in order to accomplish this vital task. It is my task to 'talk up' the class in Australia. What I have been doing is trying to get the locals to in the different states of OZ to see what a really beaut boat this boat is. For it has looks , it is one dsign and all it needs is some ground work and I thought I could get some great Ideas on how to accomplish that, from people who were working to this end , as well.

[Stephen Crewes]

Doug , I know where the State College club sails but how far is the White Rose club away from that venue?

What surprised me about the cost of your second hand boats(you stated aboutUSD$600), same type of boats in AUST are about the same price! We have been trying to sail at FULL sized Yacht Clubs to sort of win the "converted" over. I think we might run into a bit of padding the price for it is getting difficult to get second hand boats at this early stage because we suspect the current owners can see something happening in the class and will engage at some later date.

[Doug Wotring]

Our location is about 2 hours south of state college just North of the PA/MD state border.

.

[Stephen Crewes]

Doug what would the numbers be in Pennsylvania and in particular , what sort of numbers of Ec12s are at your club and do you have any other classes besides EC12.

What do your regional races consist of? are they a mixture of Match racing or/and Fleet racing?

[Stephen Crewes]

Doug I just looked up White Rose club and spotted those mini 12 metres, WOW! Could you tell me about them please.

We had in Sydney (Aust) a similar looking boat called the "Illusion" that I was told was modelled after AUSTRALIA 11. I saw one when I was racing my big boat (Endeavour 26') in a twi-light race in the harbour and all of a sudden this "Illusion" raced past me with two small children in it. Well the first question we asked was"was that an iIllusion or something". Now, I'm a big guy and I would not fit in one but , boy were these to kids have a ball? They raced about 3 or 4 later races.

[Doug Wotring]

Not sure what the State College fleet consist of presently.....it used to be 9 boats.

White Rose is now up to 13 I think that are regular as we have some converts from one of the MD clubs.

White rose is listed as a 12 and Star 45 club however I think we have only one star left. Our racing is fleet and EC-12. Although I think we may throw a match day in somewhere......last year one day was raining pretty heavy and it was only me and another skipper......we spent a whole afternoon match racing

as for our regionals. see the Colonial Cup under the Champions regatta link on the home page. Last year the Liberty Bell was combination fleet and match all others were Fleet only

[Stephen Crewes]

well Doug I had a look at the White Rose Clonial Regatta. Mate I'm impressed. I read your report but couldn't find anything in it in regards to EC12 match racing ? I particularly liked that boat with the polka dots on it , for it will stand out anywhere. I like your report about the Mini 12s . Did they actually race or did they just have a sail around. Those kids I was telling you about were actually hiking out dinghy style in Sydney Harbopur where we sail our EC12s. so we might have a few more candidates.

We are running into our NSW State Championship and the organizer is sayiung we have 18 EC12s so far in Entries. this was the reason I was asking what you do in Fleet Match racing, for we have a combination of the top 4 boat match racing off for the winners position. How do you do it and how do you do a Mini12 race series?

[MichaelJ2K]

Hi Treasure,
At the Mid Atlantic MYC, we do both fleet and match racing as part of the Liberty Bell regatta. It's been fun and we plan to do it again this year. https://home.comcast.net/~midatlanticmyc/ The Liberty Bell is part of the Colonial Cup Series for the Champions Regatta.

[Stephen Crewes]

Thanks Michael, what I'm really after is how do you actually organize your liberty bell event? how many Match races are there and what does it consist of/and how many fleet races go to make up your series . For example, do you have just a match race series and then a fleet race series or what?

[Stephen Crewes]

Michael , Congratulations on a top Web site. I saw down the bottom of it a reference of the "Dixie Cup". Would that have anything to do with that person of the same name, who was a founding member of the Marblehead club in Marblehead, back in year dot?

[Stephen Crewes]

Thanks Doug , No shipmate we are not talking about the same boat, What I'm talking about is the standard model 12, with the lead in the bottom as was discribed in the white Rose web page. I checked the boat after these two kids had finished racing.

[Stephen Crewes]

An update report on the NSW State EC12 Championship on 12th &13th of March 05, with a month to go till entries close, we have 18 boats, so far.

Just to put everyone in the picture, we sail fleet racing for two days. At the end we get the 4 top boats and sail them of in a match race series in pairs. Each top boat gets at least 4 races in match racing and the winner is declared the state champion.