I am trying to figure out how many shuttlecocks are averagely used in a game/match. I'm helping organizing a friendly tournament and there's a debate on how many shuttles should be allocated per match without overspending or running out of shuttles. We planning to use Yonex AS50 speed 78 and change of shuttle will only be allowed if a feather breaks or folds or if the flight is affected. Please share your views/knowledge. Thanks!
We've been monitoring shuttle usage at our club for several years and have reasonable data to work off. (We now average 150 tubes a year) We currently allocate about 3.5 shuttles per hour + recycled shuttles from matches (for warming up). Our standard averages out at about B/B+ grade, quite a few ladies so there's a lot of mixed & ladies games. If it was pure MD I'd allocate 4 shuttles per hour. We've worked with our club members to emphasis looking after the shuttles (clean them up between rallies) and that's helped keep usage/costs down. We use Yehlex Premier which IMO are between YY-AS30 & YY-AS40. I'd expect AS50 to last a bit longer than that. For competition/tournament I'd look at raising that allocation. Hope that helps.
Games are to 21 points, best of three... of course . Standard of play is good - some county, some ex county and club/lower league players with good standard. Cheers!
A question that's often played on my mind is whether it is worth paying extra for the better shuttles in the hope that they will last longer than cheaper ones? For example, is it more economical to use AS20 or AS30/40 for say average club standard (mix of county players and intermediate level)? Or is it about the same?
I have never used AS50s before -what luxury! Definitely a good point. Also, what are the shuttles used usually in county matches? If they are AS30/40, is there much point to using AS50 in a friendly tournament? 3.5 shuttles per hour is pretty low! I was thinking about 5 shuttles - but as you said, MD uses a bit more and ladies doubles a bit less.
Yep, 3.5 shuttles per hour may seem low but my data seems to point to that. To be fair we've done some experimentation & when we dropped to Yehlex Championship grade (£1 cheaper per tube) our usage shot up (Probably to around 5 an hour). The grade of shuttles do make a massive difference. From my point of view there's a sweet spot for shuttles. Yonex are always going to have a cost premium for the branding but they are the benchmark so I'll talk about them. AS20's Break apart to soon. false economy. AS30's Good flight/durability at a reasonable cost AS40's Last longer but more expensive. AS50's Premium shuttle at a premium price. Really What I look for is something around or better than AS30 without the Yonex premium. Previously that was Snowpeak Premium grade for us until availability became an issue then we went through Ashaway brands & settled on Yehlex for the last 5-6 years.