I have moved this post to it's own topic because, as Andy said, it was "off piste" but also might warrant further discussion.
Having been to both Morbihan and Caledonia this year, each for the first time, I think Caledonia does justify its cost and is good value for money - I will explain why below.
However, I think Andy is right that typical raid pricing models don't seem to scale, i.e. the costs for families, etc, tend to be linear according to the number in the group and that presumably doesn't reflect the organiser's incremental costs or make a sensible proposition for many families.
Back to the costs of current raids, Sail Caledonia is interesting because its entrants become members of the organising club and thus see the annual accounts. That makes the finances transparent and it was clear that no-one is profiteering or incurring needless costs.
But my main point here is that I think Morbihan and, say, Sail Caledonia or the English raid, are very different events for two reasons. First, Morbihan is organised by the local communities and I assume there is a level of subsidy, both financial and from greater donations of time and resources, than is available to other raids. Second, these are different events and I wouldn't be surprised if the cost per head of Caledonia, etc, is higher than Morbihan. Morbihan provides an overall "framework" for sailing in company but entrants are otherwise free to do their own things without supervision. Caledonia is a far more closely organised and marshalled event. That means Caledonia has (as far as I could see) a far, far higher ratio of safety boats to entrants as well as the use of a "mother ship" and provision of evening meals, etc, all of which impact costs.
Essentially you pay for the style of event you want but to compare the two is not comparing like-for-like. However, I suspect there is an interest in doing raid-style events, other than Caledonia and the English raid, that are stripped down to the core essentials - i.e. cruising in company with everyone responsible for themselves, as happens on other events (Rutland, Bala, etc), but done as a raid format rather than in a single location. If anyone is interested in doing something like this on the south coast then get in touch and perhaps we could arrange something.
