Adopted classes - is it a rubbish idea?

I think we have 450 boats in the boat park and sometimes only about 25 out racing on a Sunday.

I'm quite the opposite with last weekend off the first time for a year and this weekend the boat stays in the compund because i'm doing a duty

Back in the 70s when I sailed at Papercourt in Surrey they actually had a waiting list for membership. Both water and dinghy park about half the size they are now though. In those circumstances retsricting to certain classes is obviously not going to be a problem for numbers!

Originally posted by Chris Noble this all sounds like a very very daft idea to me, why restrict new members coming to your club?

There's a damn good reason.

Down here, most clubs (like the strongest club in  the state) won't allow you to race unless you have one of their 5 or 6 classes. So that club gets 20-30 boats in each class and everyone gets good racing.

If they allowed everyone to race, instead of 25 Cherubs you may get 4 Cherubs, 4 29ers, 4 13 foot skiffs, 4 125s, 4 420s, and 4 MG14s and no-one gets a good strong fleet.

I sail in a mixed fleet (with trophies for classes) on Sundays and it's terrible racing all the odds and sods on yardstick, compared to racing in a good strong class.

Life is probably different in the UK, of course, where you can perhaps go to Opens; but why bother with driving when you could get a good strong home fleet instead?