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.