"Late Fees" for season members ?!?

[solosailor]

So I entered the season and now I have to pay $10 if I don't register weeks before? Uggg.... the Wednesday cutoff has been there for 30 years+, as were the Wednesday meetings. Appreciate our volunteer committee but another change I think is unnecessary. The committee used to have to take printed applications, hand enter the data, etc.... now it's all automated and entered by the members so I don't understand the need to be punitive.

[Wylieguy]

I'm not sailing the Corinthian (family visits), but I wonder about the late fee change, too. Pat Broderick, SSS member since 1984

[BobJ]

The diver costs $140. The late fee is $10. I will continue to wait for a weather forecast before entering.

As with the AIS transponders, what bugs me is the lack of concern for the skippers who pay the bills. From what we heard at the annual meeting, the SSS doesn't need the extra ten bucks, especially now that our entry fees don't get us a shirt. Is the SSS trying to build an endowment or something?

[Daydreamer]

As a season member I will sign up for everything early enough to avoid late fees.
Whether to race or not can come later.
If not it will be DNC.

I like the shirts, my wife thinks I have too many!
I always collected the ones I could.
Probably won't buy very many separately.

The problem was the amount of unclaimed shirts, boxes and boxes.
Trophies and plaques too.
People come out and race but don't collect their awards and mementos.

[BobJ]

The in-person 3BF awards meeting was great. It sounds like we'll be having more of those. It's hard to know what works post-Covid - I recall there were already complaints (pre-Covid) about our traditional mid-week meetings, due to Bay Area traffic.

Back in 2007(?) I inherited the excess shirt problem, so I get it. We had formulas for how many shirts of each size to order and we kept refining them. It ranged from 50% to 85% of finishers, depending on shirt size (Ex: Big skippers tended to not pick up their shirts). After a season we had it dialed in pretty well.

I love seeing the SSS shirts - they appear all around the Bay Area waterfront, in greater numbers than any other sailing event shirts. There has been a positive vibe and "marketing" element to this that will be lost before long. I don't know if the board has considered this. The free shirts have always been a part of the SSS program and in my opinion, one of the reasons for its success. Not everyone gets an award but everyone gets a shirt.

And yes, it bugs me when even the overall winners don't show up to be recognized and receive their awards. They probably don't realize how it feels like a diss, especially to those who volunteer to run everything. The "pros" are the worst about this. It shows huge disrespect for the organization and the other skippers.

[fauxboat]

Hello, all.

I asked the board for the late fee. Here's why.

I've been Race (co-)Chair for a year. I've seen YRA and the race information officer give, and give, and give of their time to people who want to register in the last few days.

The PHRF process at YRA is manual. A last minute deluge of certificate requests is an overwhelming burden on the one person at YRA that does all of them.

Having the race entries come in at the last minute is a burden on the SSS race information officer. The RIO manually reviews every registration to ensure people have paid, and gotten the required certificate, and entered the right handicap, and put themselves in the right division. In practice, I've watched two office holders also spend an unbelieveable amount of time helping people through the details of the certificate process, and reminding them what they need to do to race.

Last year we had roughly half of the 300 Fiasco entries come in during the last week. That's 150 boats to process in a week. At another race, perhaps Corinthian or Round the Rocks, we had more than a third of the registrations arrive in the last 2-3 days.

Incidentally, we also ended up with crappy class breaks in some races last year because I'd spend a couple of hours to come up with good ones the Sunday before the race. Then I'd have to toss those and do Jibeset default classes just to have anything when the fleet grew substantially in the last three days and my balanced classes went off-tilt.

This year Fiasco only had ~1/6th of the boats register in the last week. It was calmer all around. The people we depend upon to make the race happen, namely the person at YRA and our race information officer, did not have to forego family or boat-prep time in a mad dash.

I recognize that there are benefits to registering late, and that I asked the board to have people pay something for those benefits.

But like so many benefits, there are also extra costs, in this case personal costs, created the last-minute registration rush. Please help us avoid those costs by registering early. I think it'll make some lives of the people we depend on a little better.

Incidentally, if you think $10 is not the fair market value of the benefits of registering in the last week, I'd be very curious to hear your indifference price.

For those of you who volunteered in the past as board member,race information officer, or race chair, thank you for your service. Volunteers are precious resources these days, and were doubtless hard to come by in years past as well. Find me after a meeting for a 1:1 conversation about how things used to be like in the past, and how I can do better for you in the future. I'd find that worth buying you a $10 beverage.

Thank you for racing (or volunteering, or having volunteered) with SSS.

Richard
2024 SSS Race Chair

[hijan1]

Thanks for explaining the background, Richard! I think the late fee is totally reasonable and I appreciate the hard work to process us all. I appreciate as well the race committee's work to run these races. With the late fee there may be more fauxboats (DNS)- or not.

I love the t-shirts and ordered a t-shirt for the TBF but probably won't do that for all races. The TBF one has not arrived yet so I cannot comment on quality. I agree with the above postings- the large number of interesting t-shirts were as well a way to make the SSS known in the Bay Area. A marketing instrument like a white & shiny brick and mortar building. Were there actually complaints about the membership fee? The different race series fees add up but hey, boats are expensive and it is less than the gas for a power boat. I am as well willing to pay more for the privilege to participate in a race series for single-handed sailing.

A concern of mine is that the unique quality of the SSS - a race series geared towards single-handers- is "watered down" by the large numbers of double-handers. Understandably starting all these boats takes a long time. Sadly, there was only a small crowd of single-handers yesterday. Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are double-handers and I sometimes have two (left) hands, too. I don't expect a red carpet if I start single-handed in other races, but hey, it is the SSS!

A great deal of effort went into the separation of the SH and DH fleets and - looking at yesterday's Corinthian race - I would call these efforts a great success (even though there was no tacking up the water front).

Given that the two fleets are now separated, I wonder if it would now be possible to start the single-handers first without creating a melee. SH are (mostly) slower and are being punished by the hard cut off time. Yesterday's Corinthian was a great example- only one SH boat finished- I think that this is a problem. An hour more time to race would have made it likely possible for others and me to finish the race. By singlehanding a slow boat I am admittedly punished twice by the cut off time. Of course I could change both by double-handing a fast boat - I don't think that you hear this complaint from the double-handed sport boats or multihulls. Looking at yesterday's entries, this seems to be the common solution.

Maybe starting the SH divisions first is less of a burden on the race committee than an overall earlier start. Other solutions to improve fairness (a rolling cut-off or a pre-set maximum duration of the race for each division) would reduce the overall number of finishers, perhaps not a good idea.

Maybe this could be a compromise for the t-shirt problem as well- free t-shirts for single-handers only? After all, it is called the SSS. Given the low number of single-handed entries yesterday, some incentives could be considered?

An alternative solution could be two "tiers" of membership- one with t-shirts (and trophies?) and one without.

Thanks for reading!

Jan
Sweet Pea

[fauxboat]

Jan, thank you for coming out and racing.

There are many changes that could be made. How open is the membership to change?

Please reach out to the board. They need to decide on anything big.

[PSutchek]

Richard you are changing plenty ...and without even asking the membership !