Expectations

In this day and age, there are certain expectations for events. One of them is the event’s online presence. Not every event needs a dedicated website, but big events do, particularly one-design event. Class members might not be able to attend their class nationals, but they surely are attached to the class, and interested in what transpires at their country’s big event. The website is their means to ‘virtually’ attend the event.

Our curmudgeonly ways here at Scuttlebutt have surfaced this week. First we complained about the Pan Am Games website on Monday, which would not allow you to view the overall results, forcing us to click on the individual race links and move the info to our own personal score card (this was fixed by Tuesday). This week we are also trying to follow the Lightning Worlds in Greece, but their website only has the results from the first of racing on Monday, and it is now Thursday. However, our greatest crankiness is coming from the US Optimist Nationals this week in Deephaven, MN.

The Optimist is a huge international class that is equally huge in the US. We would think that there is thousands upon thousands of people who are curious about the events taking place this week at Minnetonka Yacht Club. The event has a decent website to hold info, and have attached a blog to facilitate daily reporting – not a bad idea given that blogs are easy to use. However, when we go to the site each day for updates, we find nothing, zippo, nada.

Our desire is to seek out the info available each day to compile and publish that evening. By the end of Wednesday, this was what we were able to provide:

* A lack of wind on Monday and Tuesday kept the racers onshore for the US Optimist Dinghy Association (USODA) National Championships at Minnetonka Yacht Club in Deephaven, MN. The 304 entrants will try to get the event started on Wednesday. -- http://www.2007optinationals.com

It turns out there were four races on Wednesday, and that Ian Stokes is winning with a 1-4-4-8. The results were posted when we checked Thursday morning, but no other details from the day on the blog - only a weather forecast for Thursday (maybe a good thing given that there was no wind on Monday and Tuesday).

We don’t enjoy complaining to event organizers about their websites, as we know they are maxed out dealing with more pressing administrative issues. But as we said in the beginning, times have changed, and if you have a website, the information needs to be promptly updated. We are all out here, attending virtually… please don’t forget about us.

Knot now

We doubt that anyone looks at as many sailing websites as the Scuttlebutt staff does each day, but we still get surprised on occasion Mike Hobson at MyBoatsGear.com turned us on to the latest nugget – a site all about knots. What is particularly cool is the animation on how the knot is tied. If you stink at tying knots, you might want to add Grog’s Boating Knots to your favorites.

Language lesson

The American education system has a secondary language requirement, but it isn’t enough to master the language, and few school-age children continue on to do so. When choosing a language, Spanish and French are the most popular due to those Canadian provinces in the northeast and Mexico to the south. Perhaps it is because American travel to these areas is limited, and generally for vacations only, that the need to master the languages has not become more of a priority.

American sailors are pretty lucky when traveling in Europe, as it is most often the rule in major championships that English is the official language. Heck, there is a good chance Europeans know as much about American history as Americans do. However, in the story below, it would seem that a French serviceman might have forgotten a bit about his own history:

"A US Navy Admiral was attending a naval conference that included
20 Admirals from the US, English, Canadian, Australian, and French Navies. At a reception, he found himself standing with a huge group of officers that included personnel from most of the countries. Everyone was chatting away in English as they sipped their drinks, but a French Admiral suddenly complained that, whereas Europeans learn many languages. Americans learn only English! He then asked, "Why is it that we always have to speak English in these conferences, rather than speaking French?" Without hesitating, the American Admiral replied, "Maybe it's because the Brit's, Canadians, Aussie's, and Americans arranged it so you wouldn't have to speak German." You could have heard a pin drop.

Selling ice cream to eskimos

Those who sell sailing might take note here.



Hawaiian Hottie HydroSlides! - video powered by Metacafe

courtesy of Mr. Boat Blog

Too big to cover

One of the problems with the ISAF idea of bringing all 11 Olympic classes together for their World Championships – as is taking place now in Cascais, Portugal – is that the event becomes too big for the press to cover. There are so many great stories to tell, but when simply posting the results takes a significant percentage of the Scuttlebutt newsletter length, it does not leave room for much more than a weather and schedule report.

Due to this limited coverage, we totally understand the frustration of readers like Tim Patterson, who wrote, “How about a mention of Erin Maxwell and Izzy Kinsolving who have qualified for the Gold fleet in Portugal (finishing 18th, I think, as of Tuesday) in the 470s. Izzy was in the last Olympics and finished 5th. They deserve a mention.”

Yes, they do deserve a mention, particularly after rolling a 10-3 on Wednesday to move up to 11th overall, now leading the North American contingent in the women’s 470 class. We will continue to provide as much info and relevant website links as we can fit into our format. We encourage all North American Olympic entrants to promptly send Scuttlebutt their daily email updates, and we will persevere to weave them into our Olympic coverage as best as we can.

Yachting economy

Over the years, there has become a template for the Scuttlebutt publication that guides our editing duties. We limit the length of each issue, and the number of ads that are inserted within. Ad sales keep the lights on here, and we certainly hope that our advertisers benefit from their association with Scuttlebutt (read: please buy stuff from our advertisers). The ad slots in each issue of the newsletter are always filled; sometimes the slots are sold the day before while other times they are sold much further in advance.

We suspect that one barometer of the yachting economy is how far in advance the ad slots get sold. Based on this measure, perhaps the yachting economy is doing quite well right now, as Scuttlebutt is already sold out for 2007 and has started filling 2008 slots as well. As best as we can recall, there has never been the length of lead-time on ad bookings as we have right now.

Companies need to promote their goods and services, and Scuttlebutt is pleased to be providing a respected medium to communicate their offerings.

Not Good Enough

We are not going to make this complicated. When you host a national, continental, or world championship event, you need to have a strong Internet presence. By that we mean - at a bare minimum - event info needs to be online before the event, and results need to be posted promptly during the event. Daily reports would be nice too.

The latest event that seems to be falling short of this standard is the Optimist North Americans in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. As this is the same town that ran the 2007 J/24 Worlds, and also failed to meet this minimum online standard, we are wondering aloud if the Opti NA’s will get it together in time. Here is a letter received today at Scuttlebutt from Bill Elmer:

“In some recent letters, the poor updates on event websites was lamented. The Optimist North Americans started Monday, qualifier major IODA event, 200 kids, worldwide participants, 30 US kids and as of this morning, they had not even posted the List of Competitors. I suspect less than stellar daily finish reports. Sad being in the states and not being able to see how your kid is doing.”

In fairness to the Opti NA organizers, Scuttlebutt has yet to see their website, as when we try to log-in we get “The webpage cannot be found” message. Nice!

No man love

Last week, Scuttlebutt received the following note from Gordon Clark:

I've written a song, dedicated to Grant Dalton, and every other hard man of New Zealand. We're just in the process of recording it. - Gordon Clarke, gordon@clarkenewton.co.nz

The recording is done, and the song is here with the lyrics below:

NO MAN LOVE by Gordon Clarke and Jason Smith

Hey, Grant, what’s that you say?
We’ve won, but there’s another day.
To win again, and rise above.
Let’s keep our heads.
No man love.

No man love
No hugs, no kisses.
Leave that for nights, alone with the missus.
No man love
When we cross the line.
A nod and a wink will be just fine

Hard men stay hard!
Hand stays in glove.
We all win together.
But there’s no man love.

No man love
No rubbing hips
No soccer ponces and onfield strips
No man love
When we score a try.
Just jog back quickly to the half way line.

Pinetrees don’t pine,
when we’re down on our luck.
We just hoist up the sails
and we bring back Buck.

We don’t play for the French,
the Yanks or the Swiss.
We’re not taking their money,
We’re taking the piss!

We sail straight. We sail true.
We give full credit, where credit is due
We beat the odds, we rise above,
And when we win,
There’s no man love.

No man love.
No tears of joy.
Except of course, when it’s a boy.
No man love.
No hugs all round.
Just standin’ tall and bein’ proud.

No man love.

No man love website