paddlejac said...stimo said...Goochi said...
Hi Stimo
We made the female class an open board class - meaning 12'6 and 14' together. The last SUP5000 were all on 12'6, we hadn't seen many women on 14' boards so we weren't sure who would enter. It was easier to group the division and ensure we had enough numbers in total.
The female division is a fast growing area. As the board class numbers fill out, we will break down the board division into separate 12'6 and 14' classes in future events.
It was only a year ago that the guys all raced in the Classic Paddle on 14' and 12'6 as an Open Board Division!
The stand up surf shop may just have find some more prizes not really fair for the girls on 12/6 racing against girls 14f as the 14 length being a quicker board in general
I know it's likely too late for this weekend but we're trying to promote a sport here and ultimately this is a fantastic race to encourage those who don't have as much experience to come out and give it a go. Currently we have one category for women and 5 for the men. I think at minimum going forward we should look at two categories for women - rather than assuming that the numbers won't be there let's aim high - make two categories then put it back onto the SUP community to fill them with paddlers - take the optimistic route and let's grow the community.
In the outrigger community all the categories exist from the outset. If on race day there aren't 3 in a category it becomes unofficial and therefore no prizes for it and/or if age group combined with the next one down. I know this becomes a bit different when looking at board length and not just age groups but still I'd we aim high and amend as necessary - summer is on our doorstep and so many more people are ready to be on the water (unlike the last race mid winter).
Hi Jac
Organising an event is a pretty time consuming process and keeping everyone happy is just as difficult. We are learning as we go along and developing divisions. For the SUP5000 we have 5 Male divisions - OPen 12'6, Open 14', O/40 14', unlimited and O/50 14'. We have 1 mixed division- Surf. One female OPen division.
There is a great choice of divisions for people to chose from and have fun. We have to go a sponsor and get prizes for these divisions and as generous as they are - they can't cater for infinite divisions and we set a budget. To fairly breakdown what divisions are catered to we use the following:
1. 4 or more paddlers justify a division and first place awarded
2. 6 or more paddlers get 1st,2nd and 3rd awarded
3. 10 or more get 1st to 4th.
On top of that we put alot of the prize pool toward door prizes so everyone has a chance. (the total prize pool for this event is $1800 - $1300 being the door prize)
The female division was set as open - meaning ageless and no board restriction to encourage everyone to come down no matter what board they had, but we know from previous races the majority of women in Perth are paddling 12'6s at present. Stimo has lent out a few of his 14' boards and these totalled 3 in this division (so not 4), so we kept the division as open rather than split it.
We learnt from the Avon event where the women were split into 12'6 and 14' and only 2 women entered the 14'. This was a bit embarassing as the sponsor had put a prize toward this event. We were able to shift that prize to a new unlimited male division and make the women a 12'6 category. The feedback from that process (from the women) was "Why didn't you just make make it an open division in the first place!". So you can appreciate we are trying to keep everything fair, transparent and take on feedback.
We have a great turn out for women in the surf division and a developing turn out in the open women category. There is no doubt as numbers increase we will have a 12'6, 14' and an age category for women. Like I said, we are very new and learning as we go.
Cheers
NOTE - at the start of the week the open men's 12'6 class was only 3, we were looking at having to incorporate this class into 14' class (as per the breakdown) We had 2 more entries to validate this class.
