US SAILING Recognizes Fishing Bay Yacht Club for Regatta Hosting Success

By Jake Fish

November 23, 2010

US SAILING Recognizes Fishing Bay Yacht Club for Regatta Hosting Success

PORTSMOUTH, R.I. (November 23, 2010) - The Fishing Bay Yacht Club (FBYC) won the 2010 Regatta Award, presented at US SAILING’s 2010 One-Design Symposium in Corona del Mar, Calif., for the excellence in development, promotion, and management they performed at the 2010 USODA (United States Optimist Dinghy Association) Layline Nationals held on July 17-25, 2010. The FBYC, located in a small village in Deltaville, Va., maximized their resources to put on a first-class national championship that will serve as a benchmark for other clubs hosting major regattas.

Co-chairs Noel Clinard and Jay Buhl, along with webmaster Jon Deutsch were recognized for demonstrating extraordinary individual creativity and contribution to the year’s most innovative one-design event of national significance. The regatta attracted broad national and international participation, including 317 boats through persistent marketing and communication efforts.

At first, the club was hesitant to host a regatta of this size with its entourage of participants, family members, vendors, coaches, and trailers. The scarcity of accommodations for the expected crowd in the small rural town of Deltaville, Va. made hosting this event an enormous challenge. However, within hours of being nominated to host the event, the nominees had conceived a regatta site across the creek from the club comprised of a marina, a condominium, a homeowners association, and a local maritime museum controlled by the town, and an accommodations plan. Within a week, they had secured the commitment of those commercial, residential and municipal organizations to allow use of their neighboring properties for parking, boat storage, launching, vendor trailers, food service, sanitation, medical and a myriad of other facilities. They also recruited a local preparatory school to provide a reception and dormitory space.

"The true genius of this event was the kernel of the idea to do the community based event across the creek,” said Clinard. “Every owner said yes and the site fell into place within a week. As the word got out in the community, other non-adjacent businesses insisted on joining the fun.”

The regatta site conjoined four nearby properties, including the Deltaville Dockyard, Jackson Creek Condominiums, Deltaville Maritime Museum, and Harbor House Community. The regatta consisted of three events: team racing, girls fleet racing, open fleet racing, plus a green fleet for novices.

Despite its small size of about 330 family members, FBYC turned out different race committees for these events with over 50 volunteers. The race organizers effectively implemented the fundamentals of running a successful regatta by executing proper registration, race management, boat launch and recovery, apparel, safety, medical and emergency support, judging, umpiring, protest, scoring and awards.

The backbone of the marketing efforts was an effective, user-friendly event web site (http://optinationals2010.org). The home page featured a stream of current articles previewing the regatta that were published every few days leading up to the event. The regatta information page displayed information about FBYC, sail and power boat charter information, bios of the regatta committee, an interactive FAQs page, a tutorial on how to register, a Google Site Map, and a local tourism guide. The accommodations page listed a variety of housing options including the dormitory of a local prep school, Motels, Hotels, Breakfast and Beds, and local residential cottages with rates and contact information. The web site also included an on-line shop with a secure payment system, weather page, updated results, racing news, photo gallery, and social networking capabilities through Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. 

A detailed media plan included the engagement of two separate video services, T2P.TV and Sailgroove, who provided ample coverage throughout the event. Also, FBYC facilitated the recruitment of Layline, a marine supplier, as the first ever Platinum level partner for USODA. “The other thing we did early was develop and publish clear host and sponsor guidelines by designating appropriate tiers and specific sponsor fulfillment commitments,” explained Clinard. “This helped those who supported us know what they would get in return.”

Adding to the flair for this national championship, 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist and US SAILING Team AlphaGraphics member Anna Tunnicliffe was in attendance and gave the keynote address for the opening ceremony.

Click here to learn more about US SAILING’s 2010 One-Design Awards.

Learn more about the 2010 One-Design Award winners.