The Great White North Challenge on September 11 and 12 will have some modifications to the mixed division race structure as follows:

- a race every 9 minutes
- dock held starts
- five lanes instead of six
- ghost lanes of 3m between adjacent boats
- each crew will race in the first two rounds (Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon) in a lane on each side of the course (ie: if you race in lane 1 saturday morning, you will race in lane 5 saturday afternoon, 2 and 4, 3 and 3), total time to determine division advancement into sunday morning semi finals
- top two teams from each semi-final plus the fastest third place result will advance to the championship final for each division, all others to the consolation final

We trust that these changes will streamline and improve the level of competition and enjoyment of the event for all participants. The first and second round draws will be announced early next week.


So, what do you think?

I predict people will still find something to whine about.

First response, stupid response!

Congratulations!

All positive adjustments. Someone's listening for a change.

Excellent, great to see the organizers striving for the best regatta possible.

One Question;
I should qualify this question as it is based on perception, that being that the outside lanes contain an unevenly distributed amount of Silt.

If that is so, because of the varying depths, would the lane rotations not be better structured to the centre.

I.E. lane 1 first race to lane 3, lane 2 to 4 and
lane 3 to 5.

no, in past years lanes 5 & 6 have been brutal (i think it was weeds and current). if you drew them for qualifying and you weren't a canoe club team you were in trouble. lanes 1 and 2 were the fastest.

I think this is great news. While there still might be some hiccups, kuddos to GWN for at least trying something different.

It's good to know GWN is listening to their customers.

Is this for real? Who made the first post? If these changes are being implemented then bravo to GWN. Everybody knows the course was flawed. This won’t be a perfect system either, but it’ll be a lot less flawed than the old way. Nice to see them move to better the quality and fairness of competition at their event. They must have been reading the forum last September. And how many more consecutive years could you have Mayfair "drawing" lane 2 for qualifying? They were on one hell of a "lucky" streak.

Yes it's for real - all team captains received that e-mail today outlining the changes - the captain of a team I coach forwarded it to me...that's the text of the actual e-mail sent...

Good to know that GWN is listening.

Bravo!

didnt someone say in another thread that the lanes were reveresed from 1-6 to 6-1 ?

Some of you guys sound surprised that GWN is listening.
You might not like them, but one thing is for sure, and that is that GWN will listen and adapt to the needs and wants of paddlers, as their survival depends on it.
I know this sounds like an infomercial for GWN, but that has been my experience in the last ten years of paddling.

Wow, I'm happy someone finally listened to ensure as much fairness as possible for this great event. Lane 6 was always a very hard lane to race in so way to go GWN for getting rid of it! I love the new race format which will ensure to a much greater degree accurate results as to a teams true potential. Nothing is perfect but these changes will make things allot fairer for everyone.

The only teams that will not like these changes are the teams that like to ride wash. The ghost lanes will turn these teams into ghost teams, well behind past year finishes.

6 lanes go down to 5, but now there are "ghost lanes" between them, which pushes all the lanes (with the exception of Lane 1) further out into the course. So Lane 5 will be basically where Lane 6 was.

But the averaging of times between inner and outer lane heats should ensure some level of fairness.

We hope.

GWN was always 10m lanes so a total of 60m of race course. Now, apparently it is a 7m lane with a 3m ghost lane for a total of 10m per lane x 5 = 50m. So lane 6 is indeed eliminated. Cool.

Now I'm really wondering how teams are seeded into semis and finals. Who gets the inside lanes? According to the Stratford policy it should be top seeds into the near shore lanes. Comprendo?

Ghost lanes only work if the officials police them!

"Ghost lanes only work if the officials police them!"

Not a lot of policing required. You enter the lane, you are DQ'd. Visually very easy to identify.

But how did the other guy know the lanes were now only 7m? The message from GWN indicated 3m Ghost lanes, but I didn't see anything about lanes going from 10m to 7m. What's your source.

i think his source is named Mathematics.

so then he/she is only guessing?

Now is GWN will drop the requirment for coxes to skip two heats instead of just one more coaches and coxs would be able to steer their own teams.

The way the rules were last year you couldn't touch a cox from any race two heats before or after which eliminated pretty much all the skilled cox's if you were in the B division and wasn't any prettier anywhere else.

I honestly think that GWN has the whole running of these things down so pat that this wouldn't cause any issues and would still allow plenty of times for someone to get off one boat, get on the next one and head down to the start line before the "skipped" heat even gets run let alone coming close to being late for your own.

Just a thought.

Here's an oddball rule change:
Women's teams (even those thrown together from several mixed teams) must have a female cox. That's all very grrlpower, but sadly, there aren't many female coxes. Perhaps that should change, but in the meantime, it makes it very difficult to make up a co-operative (as opposed to full-time) women's team. Don't many breast cancer teams even have male coxes?

international rules require that female crews have female coxes - maybe not ideal at an event like this but what better way to force poeple to learn - have seen many breast cancer teams with female coxes - think its a mix...but I like to see a trend towards more female coxes...

I like the ghost lanes (prevent wash riding), held start and the push to speed up the race turnover - these are no brainers.

What concerns me is the lane shifting - this could really screw a bunch of teams up if the wind conditions change throughout the day - espectially around the breakwalls and the lakeshore side the wind can create some crappy currents at the start.

I am not sure what could be done to fix this on the day of the races - maybe nothing, but I would much rather perfer a random draw for lanes than the set up they have purposed.

What you would prefer is the unfair situation that existed previously? Interesting choice.

I am sure you wouldn't be the first in line to complain if your team got lane 6 in the first heat if they stuck to the old way.

I guess it is true that there is aways someone to complain about something. I think this is a great attempt to moderate a known issue. Hats off to GWN for always trying to make things as fair as possible and listen to their clients.

Cheers

Due to the rule changes at GWN this year, you will have to have a Top 10 combined/average time from Saturday's races to get into an A Division semi-final. The 24 team A/B bracket is gone now, no quarter finals. It's two heats, then straight to the semi's.

Only 10 teams with a shot at the final, and two fewer teams can now claim to be "A Division Material".

Looks like those preliminary heats are going to be more important than ever.

What lane assignment combo are YOU hoping for?

1. Lane 1 & Lane 5
2. Lane 2 & Lane 4
3. Lane 3, twice