Coastal 2020

[Ex Machina 390]

30 minutes ago, RushMan said:

There seem to be a lot of boats DNF in the results

Still got a handful of boats out front here at taiharuru/ngunguru bay tacking back and forth . It’s super light 5Kts max 

[Fogg 427]

Pretty disappointing coverage. The official CC website news hasn’t been updated since first boats crossed the line early on Sat am.

And nothing on LSD since the start either.

So a bit of a non-event for competitors and followers alike. How did the coverage die such a death from what it used to be?

[ex Elly 267]

I guess with Covid, there were no big flash overseas boats.  No chance of a record.  Most boats pulled out. So nothing exciting for the media to cover.

However there was an admirable battle by a bunch of boats to make the 3pm deadline, which could have been worth mentioning...

 

[Fogg 427]

I wasn’t expecting front page Herald coverage but just sone updates to the official CC website.

In previous years the organisers had a pretty slick media machine that issued regular updates to the website (and here on Crew) plus media press releases.

This year it seems like they sent their comms team home straight after the start gun.

[Fish 0]

I think the PR team was let go when HSBC ceased sponsorship. Certainly I understand there was a big change in budgets recently, which is manifesting itself in the lower tone of social media and website comms.

I personally don't mind it returning to a yacht race event as opposed to a media event or party event preceded by a yacht race. I know this year was an outlier for weather, but I saw 37 boats finish out of 170 something entries?

It is a shame to have a cut off so early. A light wind race brings out a number of classic yacht racing attributes. Patients, perseverance, the ability to concentrate and helm well at 3 am, the psych games in the dark and light airs, and real tactics. There is such a preconception that the Coastal must be a downwind slay ride with a 25-35 SW up the chuff, that when it is some other kind of yacht race it is a bad thing.

There is a big focus on the party at the end, and prize giving, that must be held on the Sat night. But that precludes a number of boats finishing (every year), hence the party preceded by a yacht race comment. I think it would be good to see the party de-enthusized and the racing elevated by substantially extending the time limit. But then I do sail an older, slower boat, so maybe I'm biased.

Prize giving used to be on the Sunday morning didn't it?

[harrytom 698]

"Fish" and there lies the problem, sponsorship. Did the pybc 2 handed race a few yrs ago.Friday night start to Ponui.No time limit.Saturday 9.00am start to kawau.cut off time 6.00pm sponsors BBQ Sunday Back to Panmure.Cut off time 4.00pm

You have paid your entry fee You should have the right to finish,maybe take your own finish time??Seems to me we cater for the fastest not the average.Sure race control cannot control the weather gods. Cannot shorten a race once there are finishes though. Could the race control look at the weather and say we will shorten at cape Brett??No the intention of the race I know.

[DrWatson 382]

So, 119 NM in 28.5h if you’re in div 5. 

If it’s upwind the whole way, which we know is not likely as you’d normally get a reprieve if and when you round Brett, but just for argument‘s sake let’s say it’s on th now the whole way. That’s 167.8NM (?) sailed meaning you need to stay above 5.93kts... 

Of course that’s not taking into account leeway or currents, and assumes your boat points well at 45 true, which for a number of  at least the classics is not going to be the case.  Averaging 5.9-6knts for 28h in the light is not about sailing a well prepared boat well, it’s about having money (or a multi).

It’s not hard to run simple routing numbers and when you do it’s pretty clear that if it’s 10knts or less and N to NW most boats might as well stay home. 
 

In my view, one could be forgiven for feeling that closing the race at 1500 on Saturday, and not having or showing the flexibility to keep it open even when it’s clearly a drifter is pretty much a big FU to anyone not sailing a large top end race boat. So much for making sailing and racing/the sport accessible and for welcoming all comers. Happy to take your 200-300 buck entry fee but not nice enough to let the race run to give folk a realistic chance to actually finish. Yes I know they are volunteers on the finish boats, but nonetheless, 1500h? stick it out a bit! - God knows the crews out there certainly are!

is it that hard to organise a finishing crew to take over at 1500? You can see all the boats coming on the tracker.

 

 

[ex Elly 267]

Keen sailors kick off Coastal Classic, drawing attention of yachting's big guns

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/sport/other/keen-sailors-kick-off-coastal-classic-drawing-attention-yachtings-big-guns?fbclid=IwAR3UZGsyGHbVJ7K03bM8mg-xygo_WbjZeX0oPrbNJ-otKi2R9M7rH3-NaKs

 

[El Toro 115]

'Loved' the 7 hour carpark 5 miles from Brett on Clockwork

Went through hole in the rock sideways after sitting there another 2 hours... Got in to discover we were the third boat in behind the Volvo and Wired... pretty good feeling and boy did the beer taste sweet.

Then the boys had a champagne ride home on Sunday.

 

Great event all round

[Ed 151]

Considering only 16 boats finished the race the party on saturday night was the best it’s been in years

we managed to finish, got in at 1.30pm, nice kite run to the finish with the sea breeze filling in.

im interested in the comment about lack of coverage as we put in a lot of effort on the media side

The live Event reporting stuff goes through Facebook, the starts were live streamed, and the start video was up pretty soon afterwards, finishing story was up early Saturday morning, live drone footage of boats finishing etc etc 

we have the usual tracker running for people to follow the race. This does rely on cell phone coverage, so can get a bit shaky around the Brett, but for the most part is does it’s job

The main piece stories were also published through the coastal classic app and the website, the line honours story went up just after 9am on Facebook, I’m not sure what time the website was updated.

we were also pushing out updates through Instagram and Twitter, with an event hashtag for social contributions.

I know some here are anti Facebook, an opinion I understand. I can take that feedback to the committee, but what other channels/platforms should we be using.

[Ed 151]

25 minutes ago, Tamure said:

Sailing stories are for the sailors, the wider public are just not that interested. It doesnt matter how many media channels you pump it out on, its still just another yacht race which unless you are really into it mostly incomprehensible, even for sailors like me its a bit of a "ok so what?" If its about pleasing advertisers with views... dont know anything about marketing so cant comment.

Live vid updates, now thats interesting 

 

Yeah I get that for people outside the sailing community the reporting can be a bit meaningless.

 

I was more replying to Fogg’s comment about the media coverage dying a death and trying to work out why we are missing part of the target audience?

[Island Time 1,310]

Certainly a lot less discussion on here than usual.

And personally I tried to find the results on the website, and at first it would not load, then, for example, it had DNC in the solo division for boats that were there. 

There were conflicting results at various locations on the website,  for example overall and at division levels did not agree. 

The web page does not work in the Brave browser, and the results are still wrong now, for example;

 

and ;

[Ed 151]

7 minutes ago, Island Time said:

Certainly a lot less discussion on here than usual.

And personally I tried to find the results on the website, and at first it would not load, then, for example, it had DNC in the solo division for boats that were there. 

There were conflicting results at various locations on the website,  for example overall and at division levels did not agree. 

The web page does not work in the Brave browser, and the results are still wrong now, for example;

 

and ;

It was a weird year, because so few boats actually finished. The results above are correct by the si’s, as boats not over the line by the time limit can have their gps positions recorded, and be given a finishing position, but are not eligible for handicap or prizes.

 

[Ed 151]

31 minutes ago, Island Time said:

The web page does not work in the Brave browser...

Brave browser... their business model is certainly brave!

<sarc>have you tried using chrome?</sarc>

I’ll pass on the feedback👍

[Clipper 375]

37 minutes ago, Island Time said:

Certainly a lot less discussion on here than usual.

And personally I tried to find the results on the website, and at first it would not load, then, for example, it had DNC in the solo division for boats that were there. 

There were conflicting results at various locations on the website,  for example overall and at division levels did not agree. 

The web page does not work in the Brave browser, and the results are still wrong now, for example;

 

and ;

The lack of discussion here probably has more to do with crew.org than lack of interest in the coastal classic?

[Ex Machina 390]

6 minutes ago, Clipper said:

The lack of discussion here probably has more to do with crew.org than lack of interest in the coastal classic?

Have to agree but I’ve noticed SA has also gone a bit quiet Since covid hit . Less interesting sailing talk and more bitching and moaning .

as for the coastal you do have to scan all the Media platforms to flesh out the picture a bit which is fine if you put the effort in . 

 

 

 

[Fogg 427]

Ed - to clarify yes I was referring to coverage on the CC website itself not publishing to mainstream media. I’m thinking of those of us who are specifically interested in sailing and prepared to hunt down the best website for good info whether it’s crew.org (the old days) or CC website (more recently) or LSD (headlines only).

And if all the other options are providing unpredictable coverage then I’d expect the official CC website to be the one source you can rely on. But not so this time. There were no hourly updates or any juicy coverage on progress and individual boat stories there.

I’m in the minority of people not on Facebook or most other social media - because I work too closely with ‘Big Tech’ and I’ve known for 10yrs what they do so I came off SM long ago.

But if the simplest and most cost-efficient delivery channel for the (budget conscious) CC is FB and other SM platforms then I’ll just have to accept I’ll miss out on the CC coverage. It’s a small price to pay in return for my privacy which is far more important to me than an annual yacht race 😊

 

[Black Panther 1,775]

It should be technically feasible to reproduce what appears on CC Facebook page here. But people get all jealous about number of views and the like.

[Island Time 1,310]

7 hours ago, Clipper said:

The lack of discussion here probably has more to do with crew.org than lack of interest in the coastal classic?

Here is the  for the last few years the use of crew.org has been pretty static. The stats used to say 1200 odd users per day, but most of that was spam users. That stat is still similar, but unimportant.  Now that the newer software lets us filter that out much more effectively, we have more accurate statistics. Here is a graph of the last 2 years from google analytics...

So you can see we have about 450-500 real users per day on average. This is down about 10% on last year. Most only read, and don't post. Most of the advertising we used to have has gone to Google. Most of you are using ad blockers, so the revenue from that is virtually gone.  IMO this is due to fewer sailing posts and more political nonsense and arguments.

People here like to read about sailing. Members should be encouraged to post their experiences and activities. I'm open to suggestions, or anyone who would like to take on the admin role.

The graph below is this year - pretty stable totals now.

[crump 2]

Before selling the Davidson 28 (which has gone to a lovely young couple down in Napier) I did the math on a CC race just for a laugh. Reckoned we could finish before cutoff given ideal weather the whole way up but anything else would be hopeless. It's pretty hard to set up an event that long that caters to everyone from the ocean racing crew down to the bottom end with the piedys etc.

Currently sitting on the cash pondering it should go to a house deposit or more boat shenanigans. 🤑