News / Golden Dolphin returns for 2011

The Golden Dolphin, which has not been awarded for a couple of years, will form the back-bone of the 2011 season, with 7 events planned and 4 to count.

We will re-introduce a league system, and try to nail down a 'definition' of what exactly is 'Gold', 'Silver', or 'Bronze' fleet. We will see if we're successful at the nationals!

While 2010 saw some major disruption from the worlds in Barbados, and a late-planned nationals, we are looking to re-group and promote the 2011 Fireball season as the one to be part of.

We have 3 major events this year - the Worlds in Sligo, the Nationals in Pentewan Sands, and then eating into the end of the season we have the Worlds in Australia, which while they are in early January 2012, we expect the boats to be shipping towards the end of October.

The 7 Golden Dolphin events have been spread around the country to try and make them accessible to all, and timed to offer support for anyone wishing to practice for any of the major events.

The Golden Dolphin events:

As you can see, there are one or two new venues, and some old favorites. We have approached a couple of the clubs about running socials, and this has gone down well - we will be combining with another fleet on several occasions, and with the backing of the club will hopefully be able to organize some entertainment.

The racing format of the events is normally 5 or 6 races over the weekend.

Saturday normally starts at around 1pm and on Sunday at 10.30, with events normally complete by 4.30 on the Sunday. Evening entertainment varies! Courses are either round the cans or triangle/sausage courses although we are looking at some other options.

We do ask that sailors are UKFA members for these events

Two Full/Junior Memberships are required for all Golden Dolphin open meetings (except your own club's open, when one Full/Junior Membership will suffice) and National Championships. Full members can buy an additional Full Membership for their own boat.

Full membership details can be found here:  http://www.fireballsailing.org.uk/page/page.php?editorial_id=180

Local events

Running parallel to the Golden Dolphin events will be a couple of local series events. I hope to have North, East, South, West, and possibly a Midlands series. The intention is that there will be at least one Golden Dolphin event in each series. The remainder of the series will be organized by local clubs, and may take a slightly different form - one day opens on Saturday, and some of these may be designated sprint series (6+ races in a day!). If you can offer a hand organizing any of the local series, it would be much appreciated.

League System

Many people have expressed interest in a league system over the last few months. A lot of work has been done recently to look at different systems. Having worked the results for the last 2 years through several models, the current recommendation is as follows:

Each type of open is weighted - a Worlds, Europeans or Nationals would carry a maximum score of 600 points, the Golden Dolphin opens and the Inlands would each carry a weight of 400 points, and local opens would carry a weight of 100 points.

The events and criteria for counting results are still open for discussion!

The points awarded means that the more boats at an event, the better the scoring is for everyone - except the winner.

Example based on a Golden Dolphin event in 2011 - weight = 400

The calculation is as follows:

Hope to see you on the water.