Cats in Marathon Class

[alice]

As cats are now allowed at the organisers discretion, which races will permit them and open or canopied?

[The Force]

Originally Posted by alice

As cats are now allowed at the organisers discretion, which races will permit them and open or canopied?

Have i missed something? when did that one come out?

[TomLinley]

The UIMhave made changes to our Marathon Rules allowing multi hulled boats to compete in Marathon races. But at the Organisers discretion, I believe that RB12 will look at Cats... This is indicated at their forum...http://www.rb12.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=10

[Mikko Oikari]

Mike wrote this in the RB12 forum:

[I]
Bearing in mind the recent addendum imposed by the UIM to our Marathon Rules allowing multi hulled boats to compete in Marathon races in this country - at the Organisers discretion, which was agreed by the RYA, will you be allowing Multi Hulled Boats to compete in the RB12 because if you are then the sooner those who are buying and rigging boats right now know the better, IMHO?mikelloyd
[/I

Anyone seen the "UIM-Marathon Rules" in writing?

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Mikko Oikari

Mike wrote this in the RB12 forum:

[I]
Bearing in mind the recent addendum imposed by the UIM to our Marathon Rules allowing multi hulled boats to compete in Marathon races in this country - at the Organisers discretion, which was agreed by the RYA, will you be allowing Multi Hulled Boats to compete in the RB12 because if you are then the sooner those who are buying and rigging boats right now know the better, IMHO?mikelloyd
[/I

Anyone seen the "UIM-Marathon Rules" in writing?

Mikko, see attached. Canopies are now allowed which is good news because that means that those great Pro Vee boats from both Scandinavia and GB can now take part as long as they conform to all safety aspects and engine requirements. That could well be 5/7 extra boats running in Marathon Class C (Sports), hopefully.
ML.
.

[Mike Ring]

Originally Posted by The Force

Have i missed something? when did that one come out?

I was led to understand that the Marathon class rules were "Set in Stone " and now cannot be altered for a 3 year period. IE after 2012

There is more than one company that are designing and building tooling at considerable cost to those companies based on the rules being set for a given period.

Is this Deja Vu , or am I missing something ?

Rules.........Goalposts..........Moved........???? ???


Mike

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Mike Ring

I was led to understand that the Marathon class rules were "Set in Stone " and now cannot be altered for a 3 year period. IE after 2012

There is more than one company that are designing and building tooling at considerable cost to those companies based on the rules being set for a given period.

Is this Deja Vu , or am I missing something ?

Rules.........Goalposts..........Moved........???? ???


Mike

Don't panic Mike, Cowes and RB11 will not allow multi hulls to run. It is down to the organisers as to whether they let Multi Hulls run or not in their races.

This item has been discussd at some length recently on another thread - somewhere.

Probably Round Ireland will allow them (if it happens) and also RB12 but they don't have a sense of tradition unfortunately!!
ML.
.

[blind dog]

so although they are legal to run the uk marathon races probably wont let one run,seems a shame as cats have been doing the ctc since the 70,s

[Scand]

are the classes still the same?

[Mike Lloyd]

Originally Posted by Scand

are the classes still the same?

As JF will tell you, the UIM and RYA, in their infinte wisdom, decided to allow cats to run BUT, there are no class rules for cats and no one has written any such rules and who is qualified to do so anyway? so how can they run?

Madness doesn't come even close to descibing this decision IMHO.

[FLYING FISH]

If the powers that be would like to know what was the only cat to finish all legs of a true marathon race ,see pic attached.Trendsetting at it`s finest.You could have sprint marathon classes (CTC) and marathon marathon classes(RB races) for cats and set a precedent for monos, or maybe not.

[chris]

not looking for a row but what is the problem with cats anyway?

[hunton69]

Originally Posted by chris

not looking for a row but what is the problem with cats anyway?

They make me sneeze

[DAVE]

Originally Posted by hunton69

They make me sneeze

[Tony Davis]

Originally Posted by chris

not looking for a row but what is the problem with cats anyway?

[Jon Fuller]

There's nothing 'wrong' with cats. But Marathon has been from the outset, a monohull only series.

In most conditions, big cats would be quicker than the big mono's. The series has been promoted as Mono only and many people have built boats to those rules, it shouldn't be changed now, unless the rules for cats were written such that the cats had no advantage over the mono's and to be honest, that would be kinda pointless, so why do it / change it at all?

It wasn't broken, and certainly doesn't need fixing.

I feel that if a group exists that wants to run marathon cats, they should start a separate series.

My biggest fear now, is that with the rules for Marathon in the hands of the UIM, when P1 falls over, a whole load of changes will come, and additional classes, so that the P1 boats can run as they are, rather than re-engining to suit the existing rules. That would be a huge mistake for loads of reasons. But the influence from many parties with vested interests will reduce the whole thing to a fecking circus, as usual, and as per normal, Powerboating will shoot itself in the foot, via politics and weak managment.

I truly wish Marathon had stayed as a National series under our control, well, at least under our control to some degree..

Rant over.

[Mike Lloyd]

The mono hull only conception began when we were working on the rules for RB08. It was generally agreed at that time that cats shouldn’t be allowed to run in that race because of the history. In the 1984 RB Ted Toleman sank in the Bristol Channel in his Cougar Cat, another one, with Simon Wood-Power on board, was virtually destroyed on the run up to the Isle of Man and had to retire, and the Toleman Twins in their Cougar cat nearly sank off of Edinburgh and had to be held up by a helicopter until they reached the shore, I believe they did eventually repair the boat and carried on but they were the only one left.

That was enough for me. I didn’t want any episodes like that (I had no idea that Markus would decide to keep to tradition and sink in Lyme Bay in RB08) and I believe that now the general consensus is that a monohull only marathon/endurance race makes for fair and even racing and that is where we are today.

Cats appear to be more vulnerable to certain sea conditions than mono hulls. The problem of having potentially vulnerable cats running, and sinking, might just put off certain organisers letting them take part. These “certain organisers” have no idea of the history to all of this and, in my opinion, need to be made aware.

The question also has to be asked as to why the UIM haven't insisted that cats take part in the mono only series of P1. Why pick on Endurance racing?

It would be interesting if Simon Wood-Power, Pennpromo on Boatmad, could give us his view as he ran in huge seas around Lands End in RB84 which did virtually destroy the Cat he was navigating in.
ML.
.

[uncledekka]

Since I’m feeling argumentative today, I thought I’d stick my VERY uneducated nose above the parapet- purely to play Devil’s Advocate.

The thinking behind the original Marathon race- CTC- was that it should serve as a testing ground for hull development. Why wouldn’t people want to give the same opportunity to cats?

That said, I’m in two minds about this one. Firstly, as a spectator, I’d love to see cats and monos fighting out. Plus, it would make for a bigger fleet, and size, I’m told, is important apparently…
But on the other hand, Jon’s right: the more people bugger about with the Rules & Class structures, the more things will fall apart.
Perhaps the solution might be to have ONE extra Class for cats, with a limit on hp or top speed to keep things competitive? It’s just a suggestion; after all, I know notheeng…
Discuss...

[Carl]

could you not have marathon cat rules and mono rules seperate,so they are run as two seperate classes, but racing at the same time

[Jon Fuller]

I guess what really ticks me off is, Mike had very little support in the early days of the RB08 planning, there were far more people happy to laugh at him as a dreamer.

At that stage, Mike & many others threw their opinions into a hat, and the rules we had at the end of this year (with the exception of the contravercial C-Sport that was forced on us by a couple of assholes) were born from that group, it's findings & opinions.
Like it or not, it's been quite sucessfull, against all the odds during difficult economic times.

Now it seems every Tom Dick & Harry, many of whom were totaly uninterested 3 years ago and probably among Mike's hecklers, now see the series taking off and want a slice of the action, but of course they want it all changed to suit them!

Well I say 'Go away and do your own thing, OR conform to the rules as laid out'. Most of the existing Marathon folk are quite happy as things are, and I'm also sure the fleet will increase as time goes on, so why would we we want to f*ck it up by changing anything? Also, as has been pointed out by a few, we as the organisers (past tense for me) promised that the rules would be set in stone with no changes except on safety grounds. That was to quell the worries that as in the past, the people who control the sport would move the goal posts once folk had spent money & time on their craft. Now, in the time honoured powerboating way, we're proving that was all lies, even if we didn't know it when we said it.

I'm sick to death of being told to 'roll over' to greater powers. It's been the curse of powerboating sinse I can remember.

As I've already said, going international with the Marathon rules was a major mistake. I'd forgotten how crap the system is.

There are a few people in Powerboating that would benefit from growing a spine.