As we get ready to set sail for Merlin Week our minds are already turned to the final Friday logistics ie having to exit our cottage by 10.00am with kids, babies sailing kit etc etc and having to deal with an afternoon race. So my mind (what is left of it) wondered how extensive the  Friday - Friday booking is across the fleet. Possibly a quick survey at Registration would establish the actual picture and if the F2F dominates would it be worthwhile sailing the event Saturday to Thursday? I appreciate that in some quarters this might be a heretic suggestion however it would release the Thursday night for a HUGE last night and allow a gentle exit on Friday morning.
Just a thought from an old bloke - see you Friday !!

After last year i wholeheartedly 100% agree.
It was much less stressfull.

Certainly well worth seeing if we can get the suggested survey carried out.
Ill ask the Chairman if we can ask Graham CS.
Dan Alsop

I do get your point. Friday can be a little frenetic. But its a polite but very firm no from me. Sailing on the Saturday would be a nightmare. Everything listed above plus being difficult to get down for those working, last minute boat prep, launching support boats, sorting harbour dues, getting into the property, when is the online shop arriving, briefing and registration...

I can see this is a swings and roundabouts issue.  Ive done an afternoon race on a Friday to Friday let and it isnt ideal.  But can be done, changing in SYC etc.  The converse however, trying to get the boat down and ready to race for 10:30 on Saturday morning without having accommodation in Salcombe on Friday night seems to me to be impossible unless you leave home before 04:00.
See you all tomorrow.
Andrew, still in 3511 Heaven Sent.

100 % agree with young family now chaos in Friday. 
Plus miss put on prize giving 

After last year i wholeheartedly 100% agree.
It was much less stressfull.

We stay in a B&B which we book a year ahead of time and are able to book for a Sat - Sat stay.

A Saturday - Thursday programme would mean taking an extra day off work (on the Friday before the week) so wouldnt be ideal.

If we drove down with a 3am start on the Saturday morning in order to be rigged for a race that day, Im not sure how effective we would be (though some could argue that were not all that effective anyway  :-)   ).
Theres no easy solution here - I can completely understand that the combination of a Fri - Fri booking, a young family and last race on a Friday (afternoon, just to make it even more frantic) also isnt ideal.

Though I can understand the arguments for both options, I would rather the event remain as a Sunday to Friday event.  The logistics of switching would not work well for many of those who have restrictive holidays, which is why many would come down on the Saturday and by sailing on the Saturday you are then forcing them to use an extra day of holiday to ensure that they can attend the event (If you have accomodation then there is only need of one person to be there on the Friday for the accomodation). 
I have a journey of over 300 miles to get to the event and if this is on a Saturday you can very easily hit heavy traffic on the journey down, nighttime road closures, or any other issue that turns it from a 6 hour journey to a 12 hour journey very quickly!  I need to recover from that prior to sailing, along with the stress of work, rigging the boat, getting the accomodation sorted and eating!
The only compromise I could see would be to have a race on the Saturday afternoon and the Friday morning to allow more travel time, but this is still not ideal, so please can we leave it as is and if you dont want a long drive home then book some accomodation on the way home on the Friday Night.

It may be a bit more complicated but as a suggested amend to Peters original thought how about programming the first race for Saturday afternoon and the last race for Friday Morning (same total number of races as now).  I suspect the fleet might divide roughly into one third Friday lets, one third Saturday lets and one third local or flexible accommodation. With this arrangement Friday let people could request one of the 2 flights with no Friday race, and Saturday let people could request one of the 2 with no Saturday race.  The prizegiving could then be Friday afternoon maybe with an end of week BBQ?