Sydney race series log jam

It seems that there is a bit of competion between race organizers . I received 2 emails this week for races on Australia day, one from the Blast and the other from NSW Paddle , it's great to have races but would prefer that the organizers sort out their calendars, it's a shame to dilute the events in this manner.
For my money I would like to see a Sydney race each month Dec to April , the Harbour Series in 2010 was great ,especially with the results managed by Blast RMS , the results where always up the day of the race, unlike the last Bondi to Watsons Bay which took 3 days to post .Too late boys , especially when the entry fee was $70 .
Love to hear what others think.

Are you bragging or moaning? You're spoiled for choice. We have less than 10 paddlers on our island, and our only 'series' died end of 2010!

I hate to agree with a Kiwi but may have to in this instance. It did seem so much better when we had just a couple of series to focus on, so that we could prepare for them and save for them, and maybe even have our partners agreement to go in them. Everyone would train for the series and we would all turn up to the event. Now there are so many events that many of us have become flippant with our attendance and the races have been reduced from hundreds to under a hundred. Nowdays, it really doesn't matter if you miss one event as there is another the following weekend. I guess for me the 'special' has been stolen from us . The Blast's point scoring is definitely fantastic as you get the results by the time you get into the car and I know he is working on improving it further (like having a separate pointscore for each age group). I also love the emphasis on competitor safety (it is nice to have a race where the safety boats don't hang with the top competitors the entire race - newsflash, they can paddle and swim guys! maybe take a look at the back occasionally) It wouldn't hurt to take that thinking to the prizes as well. I understand the top dogs have to be encouraged to participate but in reality the same people share the winning prize and dash for cash constantly whilst the rest of us get the odd free sample of boost juice! Each series has it's strong points but they are being watered down somewhat and the pricing is a complete mystery. It seems one week you pay $60 - $70 don't get prizes and hardly see a safety boat then the next week you pay $30 and get showered with sponsors gifts. Think of this from the paddlers point of view. We have a race (almost) every week at an average of $50 a week that is over $200 a month just to compete against friends. I can do that at Rose Bay every Saturday for nothing. Sorry for the rant but once a month would be nice to have peace amongst our fantastic promoters and organizers but hey I am dreaming and that is really not how the market works. In reality the strongest races will survive and we are very very lucky to have so much choice. This is just the painful interum stage whilst we (the competitors) figure out who to support. For me I will support the best organised, best scoring, best incentives best places and best safety. We are very lucky here in Sydney to be able to complain about such an array of fantastic events.

Neither , hopefully . But at this mornings time trial it was split as to which race the guys were going in, seems a shame.

From what I understand there is also a bit of rivelry between the different series with some not exactly happy with others.
I think there is plenty of room for both series ( harbour & blast) but fear that if they don't work their s#!t out and play nice we'll loose one or both.

On another note, A little bit of notice would help too.
I went for a paddle at Balmoral yesterday morning, got there at around 7.30am and noticed the more than flotilla of ski's. When I got home and checked emails I saw one received at 6pm the night before about a blast time trial that I missed by about 20 minutes.
Never been to one before and have been trying to get into the Blast training.

Shady that would be unusual for the Blast it normally has plenty of notice, I guess it was a huge week with loads of travel. The Blast events are fabulous and I agree we will loose one of them. I repeat though. I think this is a natural process as a new market (competitive ocean paddling) has really only just started to boom. There will be ups and downs, new ideas and the best will survive. I think it is better to have plenty to complain about rather than no choice. I guess we just need to keep telling them what we want out of races.

I saw the ocean paddler results tool from the Doctor race. I could easily find guys that I was looking for or alternatively find all the over 50's paddlers or Sups or what ever. That sort of results work is terrific so big thumbs up for Deano there.

My complaint about Ocean Series Races is that the large majority happen on the north shore and would love to see more than one in the east and/or south.