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October 6, 2010
CYC's Small Boat Race Program Planning Committee is considering a variety of proposals to attract more dinghies and small keelboats to its Puget Sound one-design program while ensuring that the program sustains itself financially.
Led by Fleet Captain Race Jerry Diercks, the committee is collecting financial and participation statistics for race events and generating a list of possible ideas. It hopes to come up with a draft program and implement changes in time to incorporate them into the 2011 budget and Racebook.
Among the critical issues the committee is facing is that race participation is down while the costs to produce racing remain constant or increase. Many sailors, meanwhile, say the cost of membership and race fees is a barrier to participation.
Preliminary ideas to address the problems include offering a low cost format of racing for dinghies on Thursday nights open to non-members at a reduced race fee.
The Club might use just one Whaler to manage the races with a paid or unpaid principal race officer and a volunteer who would set a start/finish line and a windward and leeward mark at the beginning of the night or use permanent government marks.
Another option would be to issue racers a five-race punch card for the "Thursday Night Light" racing. The fee for this option could be higher than registering for a single series of five races.
The committee also discussed: making Thursday night Sound racing free to members; adding "weekend casual racing" with perhaps three Sunday afternoons in the summer; and running small boat events with the race equipment that is already on the water for the Center Sound series.
Members of the committee are Kurt Hoehne, Mark Orme, Michael Cenname, John Rahn, Bruce Van Deventer, Tom Hughes, Carl Buchan, Kathryn Meyer, Wayne Balsiger, Remmert Wolters and Kirk Smith.