All,
I normally watch these from the sidelines, but I suppose Scott has called me out :) Although I appreciate where Dan is coming from in trying to create a shorter season and a more approachable schedule for smaller teams, I feel that this proposal has a couple problems. First, it reduces the overall number of teams sailing in these qualifiers and the depth of the events. Second, it reduces the overall number of regattas available to all teams. For teams out of the "top-nine", there are more goals than just getting to a greater number of regattas. For teams like Fordham, Columbia, Colgate and Cornell (just in the North, and many, many more in the Central and South) the goal is to improve, sail against greater competition and show that indeed you can compete with the best teams. As a coach for Columbia, our goals were not attend these events to either win or simply qualify; we were there to get experience in reasonably deep regattas and learn about the venues so that we would have the best possible showing at the War and America. I feel that sailing in the deepest events possible (those who provide competition for teams on every level) not only provides a great way to challenge all competitors, but also a great way to see how teams with more experience are doing it. If our goal is to get the greatest number of events available to teams who won't compete in the War or America, then I think that this proposal actually reduces the number of quality events for these teams. Instead, I think that we might find that the best way to improve these events is to "pre-qualify" the top nine (like Dan suggests), but still allow them to sail, and keep the format the same (#1 and #2 qualifiers for the 3 remaining berths in each region). That would then keep the first regatta of the series from being "stacked" with top teams' best sailors and allow better overall (but still deep) competition. Let's not forget that the top teams also have sailors of every skill level who not only need the challenge of these events, but also enjoy the camaraderie of sailing in fleets of relative parity. Not to mention, if I know that my team is pre-qualified, I may choose to sit out one of the North Qualifiers and open up additional berths to provisional and new teams! and free up my team for a low-key weekend. If we're looking to improve the depth of the regattas in our district and promote competition among the teams ranked 19-45, removing the larger and more competitive teams isn't the way. Instead, let's look at a system that isn't creating a hierarchy, but instead one that promotes good and even competition for the majority of all teams. Blaine Blaine Pedlow Head Sailing Coach New York Maritime Sailing Team (718)409-7405 (510)206-0003 cell [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Scott Ryan Grandt Sent: Tuesday, September 02, 2008 11:25 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [MAISA] The 2009 Schedule Sorry if this comes to this list twice it got backed to me the first time. Hello All, Having read the proposal I can see what could be gained, a less compacted spring schedule. However, I would point out that in the 4 years I participated in college sailing teams qualified using 3 different systems and I have heard no complaints from smaller teams about any of the systems. Also, the same 25 or so teams filtered into the war and americas trophy no matter what system was used. In fact many have enjoyed the events even more in recent years since with no pre-qualifiers the attendance at and quality of the events has improved. This proposal would actually eliminate a high quality event for each small teams in the spring. As for big teams being freer to do more 3 on 3 team racing. This year that would have impacted NYM only. I talked with Blaine about this last spring at north 2 and even given how things turned out said he was fine with his votes on the spring schedule of last year. He may have changed his mind since then (and didn't mean to speak for you Blaine) but my point is that this concern is small. As for freeing up big team hosting responsibilities, I think this is another overstated problem. Having teams in the major regatta schedule host the regional events does a good job of lessening home advantage at the championships since there are more opportunities to send younger sailors to more venues. For example, Cornell has been able to sail at ODU a number of times at regional events and my sophomore year we used them to see the venue before showing up at the war and americas trophy. Additionally the quality of events run by teams capable of hosting the war or americas trophy is going to be higher. Was this spring a little rushed? Yes, but the events were well attended and at least from northern teams I didn't hear complaints. Cheers, Scott Grandt Cornell '08 Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry _________________________________________________ maisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.collegesailing.org/mailman/?listname=maisa _________________________________________________ maisa mailing list [email protected] http://www.collegesailing.org/mailman/?listname=maisa
