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I agree Wayne. These rules arnt just made up there is careful consideration made. The development of this sport/hobby and the constant chages are ever evolving. Find what interests you and build your boat from there. From what i can see the statement from steve is from him talking to people that were at the nationals.

Personally Easter is not a good time as this is the time i spend with the family and many other events are on. I would rater take a couple of days off each year. Easter changes from year to year where as i like what the Australians do and have it the same every year. If we were to say its the first weekend of April every year that would be great. But hey JMO

The question is still "what is "the association" trying to achieve?"

This year, the already Popular Petrol classes were split in two doubling the amount of time required to run 25 cc monos and tunnels.

The event was pushed out to run on the Thursday prior as well as Easter weekend, requiring competitors to take an extra days annual leave.

As at the time of entries closing there were 13 or so entries, a further 6 late entries materialised by the time late entries closed off.

The nationals ran with 19 entries, the lowest number of entries for 3 years. 10 down from last year and 5 down from the previous two years. Remember that the late entries came in even when the weather for the weekend was known. I'd argue that weather forecast wasn't a factor in people deciding not to attend the nationals.

I haven't seen the results yet, but I'd bet good money that the same names appeared on the podium for the standard classes as for the non-stock classes.

So given that
1. the amount of race time has been extended by at least half a day
2. the first day of racing now requires and extra day of annual leave.
3. the first year these new classes were introduced and the nationals were extended, co-incided with the lowest entry level for 3 years.

How does one conclude that'
1. the new classes are here to stay.
2. the extra day of racing is worth it and supported by the membership
3. that items 1 & 2 are here to stay?

What is the planned direction for the association that supports continuation of what would appear to be an unsuccessful experiment?

Hi Wayne, I must have hit a nerve the way you reacted. I have to agree with our new President in that what he says, why try and fix something if it isn't broken. And that is virtually what I am trying to say if you are going to tweak the rules and specifications then tweak them don't butcher them like you were suggesting. You must think of those that have set themselves up to compete in specific classes and spent money doing so. If you go the drastic way you were suggesting then you will lose more members than you will gain. Cheers.

Good Stuff Pete, that sounds like a great approach. It would also be worthwhile for the new committee to follow up on Steve's suggestion to contact each of the Members who did not come to the nationals this year and find out why they decided to give it a miss.

It would also be worth while doing a ring around the members that did not renew their membership last year to get a feel for why members are drifting away from the association.

If you get some feedback from these two groups then you're well on your way to deciding what you really need to do to take the association and the sport forward.

Morning,

Mr Sorry, there is nothing wrong with my nerves, but were're not getting the point. I ended up on the National committee at the AGM in Blenheim (by default - there was no other silly bugger left in the room who wanted to do it) and was there till the fiasco at Taupo last year. During that time I wrote reports for the AGM's at Tauranga and Masterton and also for the Propshaft over that time. As I suggested, do some homework and as part of that read what I wrote and see where I was coming from. You will see that all of what is being rattled on about now has all come up in the past. Nothing is new.

Regarding petrol classes,

P1/P2(combined), P3, Stock Zenoah 23cc/26cc engines, 644 or 257 Standard carbs, Hulls - Thunderboat (T1) Cats, Mono's and hydros

P1/P2(combined), P3, All other engines excluding above be they modified or out of the box. Thunderboats (T2) Cats, Hydro's and Mono's

PX, Open Oval at Nats and Offshore (as long as hull complies with the Offshore series rules).

Forget all the crap about modifying an engine by changing the colour of the pull start handle and all of the nonsense we have had in the past. a stock Zenoah engine is very simple to define (has already been done for T1). This is really affordable entry level racing which attracts good fields and is exciting. I bought a Zenoah 26cc the other day in NZ, for under $290. What's better than that?

A few notes to the above. A BH Hanson modified is from memory rated at about 5 HP, a Tiger Shark is rated straight out of the box at 7 HP (allegedly) RCMK's about the 5HP mark (out of the box), so it's does not need to be expensive to buy a basic motor with good performance. This means one can run in the modified's if they want without the massive cost of expensive engine modifications.

At the Tauranga Nats in 2012 Matt Gay was doing engine changes/rebuilds in something like 10 minutes or so and with the quick release mounts and the like on the market today, this is possible, so it's not a big deal to use combinations of hulls and engines to get a lot of racing over a regatta. The racing programme normally allows other events than what you have entered between your events.

I don't really know what is easier to understand than that, really simple stuff.

Can't work out why when the introduction of stock classes is mentioned, that everyone thinks the modified engines are being done away with. Not saying anything of the sort.

Will make a prophesy here. I have said it before, and will say again, the stock classes will save this Association. Keep dicking around like at the moment and the Association is doomed.

What happened that we reverted back to 10 minute warm ups before events at Tauranga. I thought this idea had been dropped to go to a half hour at the beginning of the day or the time after the drivers brief and the start of racing. When one goes to the Nats, or any other regatta actually, I would have thought the boat should have been ready to race? 8 events over the day, that's 80 minutes warm up time as opposed to 30 minutes, so are 50 minutes out of racing before we even start. Just about equates to another event or at the least, more heats in each event. Steve will be able to comment on this, I just remembered that we allowed practice while programming IRMS for the next event at Masterton. This puts a lot of pressure on the race director/organiser, might need thinking about.

Talking about why people aren't going to events. A multitude of reasons I would suggest, time off work, cost of travel/accomodation, family commitments, especially those with young families, amount of racing to look forward to, and whether one can really be bothered. Something else to think about, the hydrofest series never really took off nor did the ovalfest so the numbers of actual national events where one can get racing (other than club events and Offshore) for a return on invesment in boats is not great. Goes back to the clubs here to encourage people to join/stay. Following on from what Bob and Kerry have said, having the Nats out of the holidays could well be worth considering.

This translates into another matter, membership of the Association. Falling membership, why? In Wellington a couple of years ago at one of the offshores a member of the Association for many years was there. His comments were, "I left the Association because of all the shit, I came back and its still the same old shit" He has now gone probably never to come back, and he's not alone out there.

The committee has been empowered to make decisions. Make some, We asked for what people wanted years ago and we are still going around and around in circles. and will continue to.

Something for you to contemplate when looking in the mirror, don't just look at yourselves, there are a lot of others out there.

Wayne