Sailing is for posh people

Originally posted by Steve411 You are only half posh, you earn the normal amount and you spend on your family, to you gay means liking the same sex, you are quite up with it and you are not gay!

+ 1

If your view of yachting is buying one of those big white bits of plastic at the Southampton boat show, then you probably are a bit posh, however rubber boot is right, yacht ownership can be pretty cheap. I told a load of club members a month or so ago, how much a new RS200 was along with various other popular dinghies and they all said "Bloody hell, you could buy a fleet of cruisers for that!" When you consider that boats like Achilles 24s, GK24s, Sonatas etc change hands for less than £5k you can see how they draw that conclusion.

The truth is though why would you want to race a boat you can sleep or brew up on, its like taking a VW camper van around the Nurburgring!

Dinghy sailing is not posh. The 5k sonata is equivalent to the £900 laser. We have single mums (and their kids) sailing at our club, garage mechanics, etc. Members go out of their way to get those without a boat a place crewing, find cheap boats etc.
I worked out that my seasons sailing cost at least half of a seasons golf played by friends (have you seen the membership fees!!!)although equipment costs for 5 a side footie are £25 for a pair of astroturf shoes every 2nd year in the January sales.

Originally posted by craiggo If your view of yachting is buying one of those big white bits of plastic at the Southampton boat show, then you probably are a bit posh, however rubber boot is right, yacht ownership can be pretty cheap. I told a load of club members a month or so ago, how much a new RS200 was along with various other popular dinghies and they all said "Bloody hell, you could buy a fleet of cruisers for that!" When you consider that boats like Achilles 24s, GK24s, Sonatas etc change hands for less than £5k you can see how they draw that conclusion. The truth is though why would you want to race a boat you can sleep or brew up on, its like taking a VW camper van around the Nurburgring!

Generally I would agree with you- however Sonatas are great fun to race.

I do notice that the kids who roll up for topper training weekends at our club (and thereby have a chance at Zone and National squads and will one day turn up at the Olympics) generally have mum and dad driving a Massive Camper Van or Audi Q7 or RangeRovaar and that all their kit is nice and new.