Cents on the dollar
A while ago a group of (us) mature dinghy sailors were batting around thorny issues of youth dinghy sailing, the high entry barriers, weak club fleets, the predomi- nance of handicap racing. Looking at how to make racing for teens more interesting, more fun and above all cheaper. We had a go at another related problem
too, replicated elsewhere but rife here in the UK where we have nurtured it to Olympian levels: the over-supply of sailing clubs. We will talk about clubs and organ- isational structures at a later date. For now I want to focus on the more urgent topic. Boats and sailors on the water; getting them there. And keeping them there.
60 SEAHORSE
After being fortunate enough to have
raced at most of the great offshore events like the Kenwood, Sardinia and Admiral’s Cups, this diverse sport now allows me to equally enjoy (very) Corinthian Finn racing at a small local club, tidebound up a Solent creek. Racing for fun… launch, a couple of gentlemanly races, maybe 45 minutes each, then back to shore to sit on the lawn, imbibe and talk nonsense. Most races take place on handicap, as now do the majority of club races in the UK, a country that once boasted the biggest one-design fleets in the world, bar none. I used to find watching so many clubs
revert (as I saw it) to handicap racing very dispiriting. Now I believe it brings with it a potentially precious silver lining. General consensus has it that as many
as 80 per cent of Optimist sailors stop sail- ing altogether once they grow out of the class. Now that really is dispiriting. Some return in later life but much of the
teenage contingent who were once the lifeblood of every dinghy club (ashore as well as afloat) are leaving. As a conse- quence many once great clubs are today social and sporting deserts, heartbreaking to visit if you knew them in their pomp. Why, you ask, don’t these lost teenagers
just step up into ‘big fun’ 29ers, more staid but exhaustingly competitive 470s, or maybe 420s for the youngest? What about those foiling Moths, or perhaps a fast non-‘Olympic pathway’ one-design like the 505? Why not stick around?
You may be out of touch Over the past 20-odd years large swathes of dinghy racing have become unpleasantly elite. Most have seen the motorhomes and
top-of-the range 4x4s, often with an enclosed boat trailer that populate big Opti regattas. Similarly, the next rungs of the Olympic pathway, 420s, 470s, 29ers, 49ers. There’s only one way to race on the circuit and that is flat-out. This means the very best gear, regular replacement of hulls, foils, sails and spars and frequently an expensive albeit first-class coach and a family-owned RIB. And new boats are very, very expensive. If your parents cannot afford all that,
and most parents cannot, then what is there left for today’s young adrenaline junky? Even to keep them in the sport long enough to just taste any adrenaline at all… to reward them for spending years getting up at silly o’clock each weekend to sail at 3kt in a box? Not very sexy that, either, as nipper gets a little bit older. Similarly, many of those parents who
can summon up the thousands of pounds needed to carry on ‘pathway’ racing may recognise that their offspring is in truth a little lukewarm about the whole thing. The equestrian world is littered with parents trying to recover some of their (think up to £25,000 per hoof) outlay on that champ - ionship-winning pony for Tabatha… just as Tabatha discovers Rupert. So parents may not wish to, or, in the
majority of cases, simply cannot afford to offer what their happy Opti sailor may now see as the only sailing on offer. No wonder that 80 per cent leave the sport.
Limited toolbox So then I looked at what it would cost to buy a new world-championship level 505. With all the bits added in we are talking a very minimum of £30,000, realistically more. For our US friends the equivalent
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120
