Editorial Andrew Hurst Where others follow
There are already six new Imoca 60s on the way for the next Vendée Globe. There may be one or two more as well, using the same tooling. Two new Ultims are coming, one a new Macif for François Gabart. The first Mini 6.50 event of a non-Transat season has 89 boats lining up. And a record fleet just completed the Transquadra.
Of course the vast majority of these boats and sailors come from
one country, France, so elsewhere a lot of people may be thinking, ‘Great, but what’s that got to do with us?’ While all this is going on, the tempo is at last rising in some of
the conversations around the world about keeping youngsters engaged in sailing, as well as attracting more in the first place. So here’s the connection… Eric Tabarly and a handful of rivals
kicked off the French sailing explosion. Public perception of Tabarly’s achievements was carefully managed and around the French coast community sailing centres sprang up alongside local clubs. The whole thing became self-fulfilling. More came in at the bottom, the story grew at the top. But the biggest thing was that sailing became cool. Youngsters
became desperate to get involved and make a name for themselves. Small businesses helped newcomers with a few francs here and there towards a Mini or Figaro campaign, plus the odd maverick record attempt. Bigger companies grew interested, encouraged by the goodwill generated when they became involved with a campaign under a regional flag. Now sailing was even more cool. The youngsters grew up, sometimes with the same backers. So
here we are in 2018 with ⇔100million of spectacular new ocean racing machinery confirmed in the last three months. Very cool indeed; rest assured that French teenage sailors are glued to the stories. As are many of their parents. Meanwhile, elsewhere where sailing is not cool small boat sailing
struggles. Again, connected. In the UK, for 20 years the top Olympic sailing nation, while elite
plus top talent being sucked out into elite programmes, is that most UK club sailing has reverted to handicap racing. No matter, build from what you have. Take steps to improve handicap racing. Some are already being explored, rating boats by age as well
as class type, golf-style personal handicaps, anything that gets less well-off kids into more exciting boats. Make it so that an unused 10 or 12-year-old Fireball ($800-1,000) can now win as many or more races as a $16,000+ new boat. Again France is ahead of the curve. When classes elsewhere
become a bit ‘so last year’, French clubs and sailing centres have begun piling in. Neighbouring clubs in Brittany last year bought a chunk of the ‘old’ Laser 4000 fleet en masse and now turn out 40-45 boats for a club race. The cost, cents on the dollar (euro!). At the other extreme a number of groups are looking at ‘salvage’.
In Ireland even the magnificent Don Street Jnr (aged 88) is helping, digging up tired old Dragons and making them available to those short of the ⇔120,000 or more to put a new boat on the water. If the UK can raise its game in handicap racing – Seahorse
correspondent Andy Rice deserves praise for his dogged and suc- cessful efforts creating a proper national circuit – then class racing will one day re-emerge. Maybe introduce two-tier Fireball and 505 handicap numbers; the Finn class already operates a successful two-tier system that depends on the age of your boat and rig. Initiatives are beginning to appear and where possible we should
squads deliver spectacular results, the wider dinghy sailing world is finally paying the price for the crazy number of new classes that appeared in the 1960s and 70s. It was going to happen, but the pain should have been eased by today’s super-duper new skiffs; the problem is that in the UK, without the big heroes racing across oceans, sailing right now is not very cool. Not something teens necessarily brag about with their friends. That connection again. In the USA, itself once the dominant Olympic sailing nation, the
way strong college sailing programmes are wedded to old- fashioned, non-spinnaker designs means there is little natural flow upwards from brilliant college racer to Olympic stardom. It’s a tough conundrum. In the UK the best chance now is a bottom-up approach. The price of having too many classes, however,
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The scion of a dynasty, John Thorneycroft launches his first boat, the 36ft Nautilus, in 1860 at the age of just 17 on the River Thames. Among later work was the use of air to lubricate high speed hulls, prompting his early experimentation with hydrofoils
do what we can to support them. If we can make sailing cool again the ‘kids’ will quickly take up the running. Forty Laser 4000s out racing together this weekend in Quiberon, the whole fleet costing less than one J/70. Think about it.
OUTSTANDING That was the most bought book and the
least read – Stephen Hawking, author of A Brief History of Time
CORINTHIAN SPIRIT We fail to understand how gentlemen could demean themselves by performing the work
STILL A CHARMER I’m in a sushi restaurant in LA and suddenly there’s this creepy old lady with her hair up coming over to talk to me… it was
they paid servants to do – The Rudder magazine, 1892
keeps his gob shut – Grant Dalton, Team New Zealand
JIMMY ON THE MOVE The relationship between us and them [Luna Rossa] won’t falter as long as Spithill
That’s the end of Oracle – Peter Lester
FULL DISCLOSURE Putin has about $200,000, a flat and a
few sports cars – Russian media When Putin’s son-in- law broke up with his daughter he had to give away close to $2billion
in shares alone – US media
do they look like? – Waters
q
Steve Tyler [Aerosmith] – Roger Waters, Pink Floyd What are they doing, those guys, Jesus, what
wrong – Mae West They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze, they should photograph
#NOTME I’m the kind of gal who climbed the ladder of success wrong by
me through linoleum – Tallulah Bankhead I used to like her [Madonna] in like 8th grade when she was
Head Fairy! – The Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant to Jimmy Somerville of Bronski Beat
popular – Mariah Carey P*ss of, Mary, I’m
Seahorse magazine and our associate raceboatsonly brokerage site are both at:
seahorsemagazine.com The editor is contactable by email at:
andrew@seahorse.co.uk
SEAHORSE 9
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THORNEYCROFT/DPPI
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