MGP Centenary Lap

[manxie49]

It was a great turn out yesterday for the MGP centenary lap, great to see all the bikes from different parts of the world taking part.

 

[skyrider]

Hi how many days was the racing on for ?

[manxie49]

On 28/08/2023 at 19:17, skyrider said:

Hi how many days was the racing on for ?

Sadly, just eight days of racing following the changes made by our illustrious government!  Centenary as well, they hardly did F/A to mark the celebration.  There was more effort put in to marking the arrival of the new boat, which I may add a load of bikes fell on the car deck on a smooth crossing as well!  Plus has already broke down at sea and went adrift.

Edited August 30, 2023 by manxie49

[skyrider]

well that's not a good start for it then is it 

[billy sugger]

Is that the one I saw mentioned on BBC news at weekend?

[manxie49]

12 hours ago, billy sugger said:

Is that the one I saw mentioned on BBC news at weekend?

Possibly, my mate was over and he was saying that they don't seem to be tying the bikes down as securely as they used to.  Another guy posted this photo ...... Someone has come up with this new way of securing them.  Some sort of enquiry going on now, FFS, anyone would think it's the first time they've ever had bikes on a ferry.

 

[S-Westerly]

FFS. Given a ferry to the IoM must have more bikes on than most you'd think the crew would have some idea! Obviously not. 

[Yorky]

From that photo there doesn't even appear to be any tie down points on the deck !!

[manxie49]

19 hours ago, Yorky said:

From that photo there doesn't even appear to be any tie down points on the deck !!

I think they're just hooking ratchet straps into those red post supports on the deck ...... Poorly thought out.

[John splendid]

At the risk of sounding like an apologist for the Steam Packet Company, which is generally overpriced and often slow and unreliable, they are generally pretty good at securing the bikes safely and efficiently. As someone mentioned, they have had over 100 years' practice so far. I wonder if the  anchorage points on the new boat are less effective perhaps. 

I agree that the lack of promotion or publicity given to the Manx GP centenary has been appalling. The Manx government always claims it is a lesser event that people are not interested in seeing but if it is not publicised then it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy. Several years ago (about eight, I think) the government tried to reduce the event to  something akin to a sequence of classic bike parades over a long weekend with hardly any real racing. They claimed it cost them a huge subsidy plus the disruption of road closures etc, which were not justified by the small number of visitors. They claimed visitors stayed away not due to nil publicity but because there were no big names "only" amateurs competing. One of the officials in the Manx Motor Cycle Club (who happened to be an accountant) calculated that the government subsidy might actually be around £250,000 - peanuts in terms of government finances and surely recoverable with a bit of basic marketing and promotion. Happily, that proposal from eight years ago was defeated but recent changes to the event do make me wonder if the government is now playing the'long game' and making changes more by stealth. They seem unable to understand that part of the attraction is the  very fact that many participants in the Manx are amateurs, yet the top people still lap only 10 or so mph slower than the top TT racers. 

One year, only a short time after this debacle, I remember during the TT, Manx radio TT (broadcast live at the grandstand) carried many adverts promoting the Irish road races but not a single one promoting the MGP, which comes only around eight weeks later. When this omission was queried, the explanation offered was that their marketing people forgot (or should that be "forgot"?). To me that suggests incompetence at best and deviousness at worst. I'm a great fan of the MGP,  as you may deduce!