Advertising via sail numbers? 55

Originally posted by old fart With regard to the missing 18 - 35 year olds, the 18 - 23 year olds all tend to go to university thesedays and sail there. When they emerge they are usually broke with a Student Loan hanging over them.

Surely 18-23 year olds are ideal recruiting ground for Osprey (or other trap boat) crews. 

After leaving university, with no boat, I joined the crew's union and crewed a 5'oh.  The guy I sailed with was an ex national champion so I learnt loads.

There must be some way to put together crewless owners with broke 20 somethings to trigger a renaissance of the double hander.

Apologies Mark, not trying to upset anyone but there is a lot of myth and subterfuge regarding what is made and manufactured, maybe there should be a made in the uk trade standard (like supermarket meat)?

I thought Banks sails are owned by Banks Sails Italy? (http://www.bankssails.it/)

i am not denying that they make the vast majority of their sails in the uk (or even all of the dinghy sails) .Just stating that there are not many places you can buy these kind of sails and if you are in the market for a membrane sail it is not manufactured in this country (UK) even if it is a Banks Sails membrane...

Ideal for that Kentish shore dump. 

I tend to agree with this sentiment entirely, but then I can as I'm on the 'inside' and have had the pleasure (and it is one) of meeting, sailing and sharing some beers with Graeme (the mild version of the internet persona known as 'Grumpf').  I would imagine that first impressions would be less entertaining, indeed my first posting to him was to recommend the Marchioness or the Herald of Free Enterprise as his 'ideal boat' 

I guess some our negative comments towards classes can be expected to provoke some reaction, but then I've probably just mellowed now I'm lipsticked-up with a Solo and honestly, really enjoying sailing it.

GMYW, I agree with much of what you say having briefly crewed an ISO myself in the early days, considered a 4000 and then eventually did the circuit on a Spice with my wife for two years. I learnt the same lessons and now race a Phantom, which will be interspersed some Albacore racing with my wife. I'll let GRF defend his own style (which I consider entertaining myself), but amongst it are some very valuable points.

 

We all know that sailing isn't what it used to be, the modern lifestyle will probably never allow what used to work to get people on the water. We also know that we have a big gap with the 18-35 year olds conspicuously absent from many clubs. I wouldn't claim to know the answers, but one option that I'm hearing from GRF is that we really need to innovate with equipment to make sailing accessible, appealing (read adrenaline) and affordable. To really make that happen needs total re-think innovation rather than incremental innovation. His knocking of old classes is really just a way of suggesting that as a sport we're not spending enough effort thinking out the box because we hang on to the old classes. Personally I think the older classes offer the best racing, which is why I'm sticking to them. Unlike GRF I don't have the energy to try and do the out-of-box re-thinking (that's what triplets does to you), so I do think, good on him for at least trying.