Nationals Questionnaire - a brief report

Thank you to the SCOA members who completed the questionnaire in October about Streaker National Championships. 73 took part (from a total membership of just over 200). Most have sailed in past Streaker Nationals but over a third haven’t and it’s interesting to get their views.

Here’s a brief report of the results; a more detailed version will be included in the next Streaker newsletter.

• The 2017 Nationals will be at Royal Torbay YC at Torquay in Devon from Friday 23^rd to Sunday 25^th . 39 people said they’re unlikely to or definitely won’t go compared to 34 who said they’re very likely or possibly going to go, but of those 39 in the first category there were 12 who said that they now only sail in club racing or do not feel confident to try championship sailing yet. It was encouraging that of the 34 people who say they’re at least possibly going to attend, 10 have not been to a Streaker Nationals before and are interested in having a go.
• When asked which regions of Britain people would be prepared to travel to for a Nationals, 17 said they’ll go anywhere but the region that appears most popular is the Midlands. This links with the answers to the question about what sort of championship venues people prefer; you could vote for more than one type and the most popular was ‘large lake or reservoir’ with 57 people giving that the thumbs up, while ‘medium sized lake or reservoir’ was second with 42. ‘Open sea’ was 3^rd with 41 while ‘Estuary’ got 30 votes and ‘Small lake or reservoir’ 22. This info will be very useful when we look for venues for future championships.
• The month that suits most people best for going to a Nationals is June, with July second and September third.
• Of the features that people think are particularly important for a venue, the ones that came out on top were easy launching, easy/cheap car-parking and local B&B/hotel accommodation. Least important were camp-sites and parking for camper-vans and also things for family and friends to do. From this we can probably deduce that most people answering the questionnaire don’t want to camp and don’t bring family and friends with them!
• Most people said that the move from 2 to 3 day Nationals hasn’t affected how likely they are to go to them, and 20 said it was encouraging them to go while 13 said it’s putting them off.
• Of the suggested options to encourage attendance at Nationals, the most popular was including race coaching. Please note that this might be an option at Royal Torbay on the day before racing starts – more info on this will be available in due course. Good social events were also flagged up as important.
• When asked which specific venues people would like to go to, there were dozens of suggestions, including the venues we’ve been to recently such as Northampton, Carsington, Weymouth and Rutland. So we must be doing something right!