When barter, favours or maybe some sails were enough to secure a good crew. Before Il Moro di Venezia and Matador2
changed the
game for everyone most sailors racing in the original maxi fleet (left) turned up for accommodation plus flights – if they were lucky. There were also many examples of a particularly able crew member finding a good job back ashore in the owner’s business; plus of course a useful sail order for the tactician or helmsman. There were other inventive ways in which the elite handful in the back of the bus were remunerated back when paid professionals were persona non grata: one well-known member of the Kialoa afterguard was handed a round-the-world air ticket on arrival at each regatta, which would later be cashed in with the airline at face value. And there were other reasons to race on somebody else’s yacht; like most other Cup skippers Dennis Conner – seen here (above) hanging a rightie during the 1979 Admiral’s Cup on Seymour Synette’s Williwaw – was regularly out racing with current and potential backers of his America’s Cup campaigns
While I am at it, here is another thought: in the past 20 years
people have had more money than time. So you paid people to do things for you, your garden, or clean your house. The new world will have people with a lot less money but lots of time. The key point is everyone, as in everyone on the planet, has a skill or expertise. So now it’s a matter of matching up and trading the skills. Say the yacht club needs some electrical work. Find a member
who is an electrician and, for eight hours’ work, he or she gets free membership for the year. The whole concept is community based, thus the yacht club could become the centre of the community. How good a plan is that!?! Or I need some work done on my car. I just have to find someone
sailboats in Porto Cervo, it’s not a good look for the morale of the rank and file in their companies. We can’t control when the economy will come back, but it will.
When is a question of how long is a piece of string? What we can control is the growth of grass roots sailing, and opportunities for local yacht clubs. Opportunities – on a positive note, local fleets and local yacht
clubs can have a real boost in activities. Not profits, but basic activities. There won’t be lots of new sails or new boats out on the water. But we will be back to basics when it comes to regattas, maybe a startline off the beach and some channel marks or an island to round before coming home. Some super-simple rating rule will work fine. But the numbers could be bigger than ever, if we get the camaraderie right. And we do control that. That kind of ‘reset’ will be a good thing. Imagine racing because
it was a fun way to get together, both with your teams and with other teams… that is a concept that works and we can all embrace! I can see Rod Johnstone and Bill Lee laughing while saying, ‘I have been preaching this for 30 years’! Seriously, sometimes we take racing our sailboats too seriously.
way too seriously. It’s OK to enjoy racing your sailboat, the ‘winners’ are the ones who truly enjoy the experience. It’s your local fleet and yacht club that can, and need, to lead the way. Paraphrasing JFK – it’s not what your local sailing club can do for you, but what you can do for it.
from the club who can do the work and wants to get better at racing his/her sailboat. Or someone in their family wants to learn to race. Simple, we make a trade, my time coaching in exchange for time working on the car. The old barter system coming back to life. The bigger the base of people means the more diverse the
expertise. The smart operators who see a brighter future when the world recovers, and the world will recover, will make the effort because that will set them apart when the world resets. Those at the top of the mountain didn’t fall there. This grass roots approach will breathe new life into amateur
sailing, the community-based world is on the way back in. Profes- sional sport, including professional sailing, will eventually come out of its cave of hibernation to a brave new world. Also, on the very positive side, Planet Earth gets a break in all
this. That means a very big deal for our kids and grandkids. Some- thing the politicians could never have done on their own. Control what you can control… what can you do personally to
position yourself for ‘reset world’? The best advice I ever got was, and still is, whatever you do, work
constantly at being the best in the world at it. Use this whole world slowdown to be the very best, as in the best in the world, at what your expertise and passion are. The world will start spinning again, and when it does you want
to put yourself in the best position you can be. That is how you win the longterm game with coronavirus.
q SEAHORSE 29
GILLES MARTIN-RAGET
JONATHAN EASTLAND
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