Another club closure

Originally posted by DiscoBall

Originally posted by DiscoBall

All activities (especially complex equipment based sports) probably have a finite life cycle - the keenest people end up running things and can't conceive that other people aren't as obsessed or struggle to catch up to the present state of the art. Easier to damn outsiders as lazy than consider trying to limit development or backtrack. 

So either the sport disappears or some disruptive development moves things back to the centre ground. Of course anything that democratise and popularise a sport will be sniffed at by many who are at the elite end... I wonder if many clinker boat owners of the 1950-60s were disparaging about the boxy plywood boats of the dinghy boom?

The concept's being called "innovation overshoot" by some. As they say, "Sports, in particular equipment-based, “lifestyle” sports can experience a rapid rise in popularity but eventually technology-driven competition leads to equipment overshooting the capabilities and financial budgets of users. This ‘innovation overshoot’ leads to a decline in participation and the eventual collapse of the market for the sport’s equipment."

The research I have done confirms that yes, many clinker/carvel dinghy owners were very disparaging about the boxy plywood boats, and of one designs in general. Reading Beecher Moore's accounts, the snobbery was such that many of the ply-boat owners went out and formed their own clubs on waterways that had not previously been used for sailing, so in some ways the snobbery could have been a good thing.

It's hard to find a positive side in the current snobbery towards "mainstream" boats we often see. The weird thing is that the hype about hyperperformance continues even though they have been around for a couple of decades now and still not one such boat class has achieved real popularity. Never has reality been ignored by so long by so many.