women's skiff

Originally posted by Slippery Jim

RS400

The 470 is a representative of the crewed dinghy, the Yngling is a representative of the keelboat.  Both those sectors are vastly more popular than skiff types. Look at the numbers of boats that turn up to national titles.  In the UK's top 25 classes there's 3 keelboats, 12 crewed dinghies, singlehanders, some cats and just one skiff type - the next most popular skiff types sit at 40th and 41st.

In the USA's top 25 most popular nationals, there's one skiff type (29er), and 11 crewed dinghies.  I think the next most popular is the I-14, with just 15 nationals entries last time around.

In Australia, where for decades some clubs have paid people to race Skiffs, there's just two skiff classes in the top 25, compared to eight crewed dinghies, 3 keelboats, 7 singlehanders, 3 cats and 2 windsurfers.  Many clubs have seen their skiff fleets disappear over the past 15 or so years.

Some of the biggest names in the sport have tried to make skiffs popular, and they have failed to make them anything more than a minority interest, even where they have been around for 100 years.  Fantastic boats, no doubt about it (first boat I ever sailed was my dad's champion 16 Foot Skiff) but they are not the way the sport is going.

There ARE places where twin-trapping in doublehanders has been around for 25 years, and more.  Those places have seen twin-trapping drop to about 20-50% of its former popularity over than time, so after 40 years of twin trapping it still only attracts a minority of dinghy sailors.  Similarly, my home town created the first wiring singlehander class and there's no such class here anymore.

The weightlifting analogy doesn't seem very accurate to me, because in most sports the Olympians use similar gear to amateurs.  Hussain Bolt runs along a track similar to the one near me and (I assume) near you.  I can swim in the pool used for the 2000 Games, and you'll probably be able to swim in the 2012 one.  Contador rides a bike that has the same strict (and drastically performance-reducing) rules as the one I ride.  

We don't see Olympic shooters using laser sights and machine guns to eradicate their targets, we don't see Olympic swimmers using buoyant suits (remember that outcry) and the most popular sports are the ones that people can relate to.

Skiffs are fantastic, but the fact is that no-where in the world, even where there is much more money pushing skiffs than conventional dinghies, are they attracting most sailors or a growing proportion of sailors.  Even here in Oz, the skiffs are shrinking.  The idea that they will be the 21st century class (as the Rebel site implies) is just ignoring the reality, which is that even at top level they are only a minority interest.

Edited by Chris 249 - 03 Nov 10 at 5:33am