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Is inflation impacting Nationals Attendance?
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423zero View Drop Down
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Posts: 3420 		Post Options Post Options   Quote 423zero Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Is inflation impacting Nationals Attendance?
    Posted: 11 Aug 22 at 2:06pm
Woodburner, glad to hear from you
Robert
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CT249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 399 		Post Options Post Options   Quote CT249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Aug 22 at 9:50pm
Originally posted by Woodburner

Well I hate to burst your bubble re SUPS, but the party is well and truly over, warehouses are full of them unsold, Mistral Sups in the middle of Lidl at 199 including a chair thing. As for the inflation impact as someone else said up there, it's not just inflation it's a general lack of consumer confidence in the face of all the issues being broadcast by our beloved mejia. Having said that the Scorpions went well according to one of ours and so did the Contenderweight Nats and we're even planning something to boost the take up of that elephants graveyard where old helms go to die, the Tasar that has been proliferating of late here in Kents compost heap on sea.


We know the boom is over, but we can still learn lessons from it.
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Grumpycat View Drop Down
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Posts: 497 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Grumpycat Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Aug 22 at 9:56pm
Err no , the last thing we want is a boom because then you always have bust. 
What we need  is a strategy to get steady long term growth . Smile
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davidyacht View Drop Down
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Posts: 1345 		Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Aug 22 at 10:22pm
Not sure if the SUP boom is over in sunny Devon, but there is clearly over supply as everyone piles into the market, I suspect that those who have exited the SUP market recently have done well 
Happily living in the past
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CT249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 399 		Post Options Post Options   Quote CT249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 Aug 22 at 11:56pm
Originally posted by Grumpycat

Err no , the last thing we want is a boom because then you always have bust. 
What we need  is a strategy to get steady long term growth . Smile

We can learn from a boom without having one, but on the other hand where would sailing be without the post-war boom that made it so much more popular?
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CT249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 399 		Post Options Post Options   Quote CT249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Aug 22 at 12:13am
Originally posted by Grumpycat

I think the growth sups are great and it’s energised a whole new section society to take up a new pastime.
But I bet in every canoe club they are talking, like dinghy sailors,  about why these people didn’t do their sport at their club. 
The answer is simple it’s a athletic pastime not a competitive sport . With a pastime , you need very little infrastructure or rules ( to be honest most supists don’t even known they need a licence to sup on most  canals and rivers ) while sports need infrastructure , rules and people to organise races and training. 
So I’m not to sure what lessons we can take from then other than try and make our clubs as outgoing and friendly as we can . 
As posted above,   accessibly is key . 

Yep, accessibility is the key, and if we turn that key and look inside SUPping, surely learn a lot.

There's actually a significant amount of SUP racing going on - the biggest SUP races get 700-1000 competitors. The toughest is 444 miles down Alaska's Yukon River. It's getting big enough for the international kayak association to end up in the Court of Arbitration for Sport to try to take over SUP racing, where it wound up looking very silly.

But yes, most of the promotion and interest is just puttering around in accessible waterways and that's just one lesson for sailing. Another is the fact that people seem to want to have lessons to do something as simple as SUPpng. That seems weird to me, but that's my fault because I'm not seeing it from the novices' point of view. If people feel that SUPping is too complicated to learn easily, one can imagine how hard they think sailing must be. And the difficulty of an "insider" seeing out an "outsider" sees a sport is also illustrated by the fact that many of us can't see why you need basic lessons to SUP.

It's a mystery to me why people would rather SUP than kayak, but perhaps kayaking is making itself seem too scary with the safety gear people now use?  Maybe it's the extra length of kayaks making them too cumbersome?  But more importantly, surely there's a lesson there? Almost certainly, we outside the SUP boom are missing out on a lot of other useful information that we could use to help grow sailing.

In a similar way, it's baffling in some ways and disturbing in other ways that the success of the Windsurfer LT and the DF65 radio control boats are being largely ignored by the powers that be in our sport. For example, one of them has incredibly simple rig controls that cannot be adjusted while racing at all, yet it's attracting huge fleets including world champs from development classes. The other is a fairly leading-edge performance hull mass produced in cheap plastic and with no seams allowed in sails. 

The powers that be should surely be doing proper analysis of such things when they make decisions about our sport. They claim to be our leaders so they should be doing a professional job of it. 

PS - I may add that I have been, and am, heavily involved with growing the sport at various levels so I'm not sniping from the sidelines; rather I'm frustrated because I know from experience that we CAN grow our sport, but the powers that be are actively steering it in the wrong direction because they refuse to research the very complex issues that drive sports participation.









Edited by CT249 - 12 Aug 22 at 12:25am
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The Q View Drop Down
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Posts: 126 		Post Options Post Options   Quote The Q Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Aug 22 at 4:50am
The problem with high performance dinghies is many of the UK's sailing clubs waters are totally unsuitable for them. Also they often require another step up in skill level to get the performance out of them.
Many times I've seen people with more money than sense buy the latest go faster dinghy, only a few weeks later to see it unused as they are still back of the fleet or can't keep it upright.

As for SUPs our club has a section for them, with training available, and bouyancy aids are required.

A bigger problem is visitors to the broads, either just with a SUP / Canoe , or on a hire boat bringing an SUP or canoe / inflatable canoe. Most have no training, or skill with them, they have no clue to the danger.
Most don't know you need to pay Broads Tax. £8.50 for a week, £37.78for a year for a canoe or paddle board on the Norfolk Broads.

As an example during last weeks regatta,we had 4 sit on canoes come through the Regatta 4 abreast with a large space between them, on a river 180ft at most wide.. that forced an impatient overtaking hire boat way out into the river causing a collision between two of our fleet. We had up to 75, sailing boats from toppers to 40ft broads sailing cruisers out....

Common sense should have said paddle down the rivers in single file, but no, they'd been told every should avoid them . On rescue boat duty at the time I went over to advise them to go single file on the river, they were taking up half half the width of the river further up, with inexperienced drivers of 40ft motor boats wandering around impatient to get to the next pub..
Still sailing in circles
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Sam.Spoons View Drop Down
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Aug 22 at 9:00am
Originally posted by Grumpycat

The problem with it is 99.9% of people taking it up have no previous experience of water sports so have no idea of dangers of water in all its forms . 
Mrs G gave up going on paddleboard fb pages because of a number reasons . 

1) Some people think they can just turn up at every bit of open water and sup ( it’s their RIGHT you know Smile) 
2) People who say ALL boards are the same ( that board they bought online for £150 is constructed the same as a £700 Red board )
3) Some people think wearing a wetsuit and or buoyancy aid is just unnecessary. ( the ankle strap to the board is all they need you know LOL) 
4)  People who think a waist buoyancy aid is a good idea. ( They are kept in a bum bag and if you fall into the water , you have to unzip the bag , put the buoyancy aid over your head and then inflated it.) 
As Mrs G put it , there is only so much time you can spend trying to persuade people not to kill themselves.

I have done exactly the same thing, the number of times I got shot down in flames for suggesting that gym/running kit was unsuitable for SUP... but it is not only on 'Farcebook', I read a page on a SUP shop website that included the advice "You don't need a wetsuit when SUPing as you won't spend much time in the water"... 
Spice 346 "Flat Broke"
Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish"
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Do Different View Drop Down
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Posts: 1312 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Do Different Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Aug 22 at 9:08am
Sadly a body was recovered from Ullswater yesterday. A man SUP ing was reported as being in difficulties near the ferry jetty a few days ago. 
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john80 View Drop Down
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Posts: 37 		Post Options Post Options   Quote john80 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 Aug 22 at 9:22am
In the middle of summer SUPing with just a buoyancy aid assuming you are well versed in cold water shock then you are probably fine. I think the bigger issue is people not wearing buoyancy aids or being too imobile to get back on the board once they have fallen off it. If you sensibly risk assess both these factors then maybe your running kit is fine however if you are going to wait an hour for the RNLI to place you back on your board then that snazzy running kit probably was not the right choice. 
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