Diversity and lack of it

Wasn't really thinking about it until I was getting bored waiting to leave the show on Saturday 2-3 hours and I'm about done and I made the mistake of coming to the show with the Club Contenderati who frankly are worse than a shoe shopping trip with the breadknife in full Imelda Marcus mode for gossipping.

Couple of weeks ago I went to the bike show at Excel, and tbh you don't really notice who or what skin tint is riding it, it's the bike you check out, but when I think about it, the comparison between that show and the sea of white faces at Farnborough does give the lie to the total lack of diversity in the dinghy world and causes you to wonder why.

I swear to God I didn't notice a single face of any ethnicity other than white unless you count mild mediterranean Portuguese in the Pornstar designer. In this day and age, I find it very strange. I was there as it turned out pretty much all day saturday and being bored actually started to look around. Nada.

Woke bomb not going to well for them is it?

Its a good question and true that sailing is not attracting non-white participants. The same is also true in other sports such as skiing and it is also often discussed on similar forums. I think the question to ask is whether we are excluding or turning away non-white people which would be a big issue or is it that our sport is not attractive to non-white participants. Over the years I have spoken to my friends who are black or asian about this and their initial reaction is that they tend to feel the cold so they avoid sports where they perceive they will be cold and wet. I have no idea if this is actually true or whether it is a reason. I really hope as a sport we are welcoming to anyone who wants to participate and colour or ethnicity should be totally irrelevant!

If you consider the proportion of the UK population that participate in 'sailing' and then look at that ratio in relation to the non-white population of the UK I would suggest that you are looking at quite a small pool from which to attract participants. Then consider the demographic of the catchment of a significant proportion of sailing/yacht clubs and you might be somewhere close to having your answer. It would be interesting to hear about the diversity within clubs that consider major population centres as their catchments. 

Remember the population of the UK is 87% white, Most of the 13% Choose to live in the big cities where there isn't much sailing..