Over subscribed regattas and events

[coach]

With in the UK, and particularly within the Thames Valley, there are an increasing number of regattas that are oversubscribed.

There is no common approach to how they deal with this problem and the current rules of racing hinder any pro-active steps to try and re-allocate crews to other events.

Some regattas and head races operate a first come first serve entry system. However, other than the cost of the entry fee, there is nothing to prevent crews entering early to guarantee a place, waiting for the draw, and then withdrawing from an event if they do not feel that they wish race. They may have, perhaps entered both junior eights and IM2 eights and having seen the draw or, in some cases,even raced the first round of one the events before deciding not to turn up for the first round of the other.

Other regatta's simply decide to cut an entire event out of the program, despite having advertised that they will be offering races in that event. This often leaves the crews in question in limbo. They have made an entry and then find that they have no event. This usually happens long after there is any chance to enter an alternative event. I know of one event recently that was still accepting entries both online and by snail mail up to the official closing moment in events that they had already earmarked for removal from their program.

Some very high profile regattas (HRR, HWR, NSR, BUCS) run a time trial system as the opening round of many of their events. This means that some of the slower crews may end up only racing a time trial and not progressing to side by side racing.

Is it not about time that a common and common sense approach was taken that had the interests of the athletes, who want side by side racing, as the first concern.

[davie...@gmail.com]

This has come up a few times now.

I think the idea of running time-trial prelims and then allocating to Cup/Bowl/Plate -type events has a lot of merit and seemed to have gone down well at the Diamond Jubilee regatta. Maybe you pre-categorise for eg boat-type, Junior/Senior/Masters and Men/Women, but after that, it is purely down to prelim times.

The main concern would be ensuring the time-trials are fair and free from too much variability in conditions. Regattas might need to practise running 2 or 3 -abreast time trials and consider what that would involve on their stretch or course.

Kit

[Brian Chapman]

On Monday, June 17, 2013 10:03:12 AM UTC+1, coach wrote:

With the explosion of junior rowing in the North West of England, Heads and Regattas (before the schools break for the Summer) are also having the same problem. The Regatta Calendar is full of events and trailer availability for clubs limit options. Do we need to go back to the days of School's Regattas? In the 1960's there were events such as Hereford Schools that provided a full days racing.

Payment before the draw takes place would stop some of the more dubious entry tactics, and clubs voting with their entries the following year would force regattas to behave better. It may be that British Rowing's on line entry system needs to be able to block entries by race as well as just closing for all entries.

[johnf...@gmail.com]

Head of the Charles has been oversubscribed for years. Some of the things they do to handle it, which might be useful?:
- Penalty for late scratches is not only loss of your entry fee, in addition they will not accept an entry from your club (or from you if it is a 1x event) in that category for the following year. There is a scratch deadline which is weeks before the event. There may be allowance for late withdrawals for medical reasons, I'm not sure.
- Deadline for entries is well before the regatta: August 1 for 1x, Sept 1 for all other boats, regatta is about October 20.
- Entries are allocated according to a system combining performance the previous year and a lottery. For team boats, if your club's boat finished in the top 50% of the field the previous year, your club gets a guaranteed entry in that category. Then additional entries are chosen by lottery from a pool of those who did not finish in the top 50% plus new entries. Different rules apply to 1x and 2x. The total number of entries to be accepted in any given category is determined by multiplying the number of entries in that category by the ratio: (total number of boats that can be accommodated in the whole regatta)/(total number of entry applications received).
The system does generate ongoing interest in the regatta: having a guaranteed entry motivates you to use it. There have been some modifications such as preference/early acceptance for foreign crews (sensible) and charity entries (unfortunate, but some marathons are doing this).
For a multilane regatta time trials seem fairer because they measure the speed of this year's boat, the personnel in a team boat may have changed from last year.

[Richard]

I like the idea of penalties for late withdrawals (other than for medical reasons), and even bigger penalties for crews that simply fail to turn up, without even having the courtesy to tell the organisers that they have withdrawn. This is discourteous and unsporting, especially at ML events, and wastes time while enquiries are made to establish where the missing boat is.

Take a 9-boat event for instance. That would be typically require two heats (one 5-boat and one 4-boat) with the first three from each heat to progress. Suppose heat 1 is raced as per programme, but unknown to the organisers until after heat 1 starts (sadly, not that unusual), one of the crews in heat 2 fails to turn up. You are now left with the choice of letting all three remaining crews through (so they don't have to race as hard as the boats in heat 1) or change the qualification rules for heat 2 on the fly and allow only two to progress (which is unfair on the boat that gets eliminated, as they might otherwise have made it to the final). If withdrawal had been notified in advance, then the event could have been re-drawn into two fairer 4-boat races.

[johnf...@gmail.com]

Sorry my verbiage was unclear in my post above, hope it wasn't too confusing:

When one applies for an entry slot that's an "entry application".

When the regatta gives one a slot, that's an "accepted entry".

Apologies.