Plymouth uni yacht club has about 300 members, what does this compare to other unis? also the j80s are shared with a local sailing school

There is a rumour going around that Manchester FC has a bigger budget than Torquay United. How come these clubs in the north have more money? Something should be done about it.

And uni clubs also compete against each other in team racing. That, I assumed, was the source of your whinge about a "level playing field". Well, raising money for equipment is part of that competition. Consider it a lesson for life.

As for the RYA handing out money to uni clubs, where exactly do you think the RYA gets its money from?

simsy

r u at solent uni.

have to admit it is clicky,  but it is a good laugh, they will give anyone a chance.  cant realy comment on how it is run.

Let me just clarify Stefan, I'm not "whinging" here, just attempting to start a discussion on the topic.  Fair enough, I stated at first that the Northern clubs didn't win much in Team Racing, but my true question is the lack of RYA help to clubs that are attempting to get people into sailing. 

I know where the RYA gets its money from, but thats not the point or the question.  An organisation like the RYA should at least consider that they could actually gain from this, as help at grass roots equals more sailors likely to join the RYA later. 

Yes it is the point. Apart from certain government and lottery money which is fenced for specific purposes (primarily the Olympic team), the RYA gets its money from subscriptions. There is no earthly reason why RYA members should want their subscriptions spent on giving nice shiny boats to students.

From my experience, a good membership base, like Plymouths makes a great difference.  How you get that started is another matter altogether.  For a lot of people the social aspect of sailing is an important factor at uni!

Not all university sailing involves university owned boats.  There are other events where uni boats are not needed, such as the fleet racing nationals.  (I know it is in Weymouth but where else are you going to hold that many people and have such a club as rendezvous?) The fleet racing is always a good way to get your AU to look closer at funding the sailors.  Like most sports, if you are not going to give back to the AU, such as BUSA points, then the incentive is not always there.  If hockey and rugby bring in the points then that is the way they are going to go.  Yachting and Match racing are other prime examples where the boats are supplied, albeit for a higher entry fee.  But even then it is not too excessive.

Inter Uni training also works, if your uni doesn't have the facilities/boats, just go to another uni and train with them.  Or maybe ask a local club to help (like Plymouth).  This process not only helps you, but brings the standard up in the whole region.

Other options are to hire boats from local clubs for non racing members.  This might be initially more expensive, but at the end of the day you hand the boat back and don’t have to worry too much about that bit of broken rope etc. 

As for the age range missing from clubs (18-25) my uni is a member of a club, but I would not class us as being members really, we just use the lake as part of the uni sailing club.  Might be a bad point of view but means we don’t get in the way of club racing (too much)

I am familiar with the objectives of the RYA, thank you. If the RYA had money to hand out for equipment, which it doesn't, it would be better spent on clubs, which are open to everyone, rather than students, who are a small group in society. Funding for university sports exists through other routes. It is up to those running university sports societies to lobby for their share of it.

sorry to correct u but our uni did win the nationals and are a southen uni. it is good that ur doing the team racing what are the events like up there.  it is a shame that we dont compete more at a lake in the middle of the country.  most of the stuff that we do is down here. (spose it is all travel costs)

you usually buy a flight of boats, not six separate boats.

And as far as I can recall it depends on where you are in the country as how hard is it to get to BUSA from your qualifying region.  Having the playoffs in Scotland this year should make things interesting! (how many flights are going to be run?) 

There is also the reputation that unis hold (rightly or wrongly), with regard to sailing (and that varies depending on what type of sailing you do, be it yachting/team/match/fleet/casual)!

It should be mentioned that the plymouth uni YC do not own the J80 we will just have some use of them, they have been brought by the university with other partners, they are being run by a local sailing school.

The YC its self dose not have a great deal of funding, posisbly more than some of the above but then we do have over 200 members. (The large number of members is as much to do with sailing as an active socal calander)

I don't think the RYA should limit funding (they would only mess up what for UPYC works reasonably well) as that would be bad for us if the RYA wanted to top up our money hell why not!

I

Out of interest, how many of your 200 members actively sail with the uni?

Just the point I was about to make, the xmas holidays and the winter kills any enthusiasm and interest.

Many people at uni who are into sailing have their own boat and often sail outside of any uni sailing clubs. This avoids problems of knackered boats, safety cover and the inevitable drama that comes with university clubs. Local clubs often offer very discounted student rates for compound and membership.

It is very interesting to see how many university owned boats were raced at the student nats. Very few, the vast majority were privately owned.

The state of student sailing is a shame, as has been previously mentioned, it is a great time to get people into the sport. Many serious sailors student age are dinghy instructors so teaching could be done quite cheap. Unfortunately sailing is expensive and very weather dependant - uni windsurfing clubs have a hard time too.

I joined my uni sailing club in 03 but I found the club very cleeky – It seemed like the only way to get into the teems was to be in the cleek and the only way to be in the cleek was to be in the teems. So I joined the canoeing club instead.

Nobody from Ullswater yacht club are part of the sailing teems at their unis as we have all come home saying the same thing - that uni sailing clubs are really cleeky and sail badly maintained boats. We all come home to sail and feel that we get better, more competitive racing, in boats that stay in one piece (and are more fun to sail - Larks are not comfortable for a normal sized 21 year old bloke!) with people that are welcoming and not cleeky.

I wander if anyone else found this problem with their uni clubs? Perhaps lack of members (and hence funding from the AUs) is due to cheekiness? If it can drive away people who are pretty keen sailors already, surely it can scare away people who are new to the sport?

It is a shame people give up on there uni sailing clubs because they feel it is cliquey!  At my uni (Solent) we the committee tried very hard this year to get people involved. But people have to join in and get involved and get the most out of there club, after all they are spending money to be in the club.

 In one case I bumped into a sailing club member at a none uni event. When I asked him why I had not seen him at the uni sailing events, he said well I did a few things then my club text messages stopped coming. So I looked into it and he had changed his mobile number and not told us!!!!  

So back to my first point the clubs may seem cliquey but people need to put the effort in and get involved you can’t just expect to turn up and get on the team.

We try are best to introduce new people into the club but cant be there to hold your hand, you are at university now and some social skills are required.

Ian Turnbull

Vice commodore Solent uni sailing club

At our club its an open doors policy.  Any one can join.  As for some of the costs that were not mentioned to members at the start, things do change (such as the rate to hire boats) but in general I think I have saved my self quite allot of money sailing for the uni.  I mean petrol, entry fees, accommodation, wear and tare, club membership, they all add up. 

How many other uni sports do a '1st team' go out the night before a championship/any other event with their casual sailors and then sleep on a randoms floor from the host uni.  How much more welcoming can you try and be?  I think turnturtle has it right that you have to put a bit of effort in, you have to remember some people have been friends at uni for a little too long (Masters/PhD students).  Saying that they are more than willing to make friends with anyone, you just have to give them a chance. 

from my point of view having had the dubious honour of attending 2 unis as an undergraduate , admitted both were now a few years ago  but within the last decade,  university sailing is dominated by  a faction of a rahs! who cannot see beyond  team racing,  they do not want peopel who can actually sail as part of university sailing  instead are happy to stay in their  isolated  cul de sac of sailing and  don't want people to join them in that cul-de -sac incase they get shown up by those who have both boatspeed  and  boat handling skills   like  many of the  people who grow up sailing in family / racing  clubs and also get into both 'sides' of the RYA system ( i.e. the sailing / instructing  and race training)

I dont think we have the problem of encouraging folk to come and join in. Infact next to Glasgow Uni at times Strathclyde has always had the biggest turn out of bodies usually represented in the form of numbers of teams and faces at the socials. For example at teh Scottish Match Racing Champs most Unis had one team, we had THREE! and mosty made up of freshers aswell. Our problem is that we have so many members in comparison that are interested in the events with a lot of folk under the ehtos of "its the taking part that counts". This is purely due to everyone enjoying it so much, if you disregard the competitive side of the events, where else during your years as a students are you going to get to socialise with as big a body of people who are as like-minded as youself! Yes we have some pretty good sailors in the CLUB who are rightly placed within the "team structure". Our current issue is ensuring that we avoid the "cliquey-ness" that has dissolved so many clubs before, we are trying to enforce the thinking that if there are people interested in doing something, they should be allowed to do it and every possble means should be taken by the club to make this happen. You can still ahve a hot-shot A-Team AND get as many fok involved in your B to Z teams as possible. We are now pretty much on top of this but our biggest problem is that we do NOT currently have the equipment to allow those who want to train, to train and those who want to just sail on their free time, to sail. We dont have ANY boats at all. We are not looking for loads of money as such as we have some, we are only looking for a flight to come up for sale.

out for now

University of Strathclyde Sailing Club

ARGHHHH - I think I made a mistake of trying to read all of that in one go... By this page I was just skimming as every other person seems to be saying one thing and the rest the other.

I think Cliqueness (sp?) is a huge problem in some universities. Having lots of teams is not always a good thing. we must have at least 6 team racing teams so they dont get as much time to train as we only have a few flights and some arent working due to a lack of rudders.

Soton is well known as a sailing university but I genuinly dont think the sailing club could afford to run on AU funding. I dont know all the ins and outs but I believe the club has two main sponsors, One of which was brought to the uni with one of the girls who had the sponsorship herself before she came to uni and the other is a graduate employer that sponsors at least 2 other AU clubs.
The joining fee at soton is realy quite high and there is a fee for every time you go sailing, but tbh im not sure that that is nec. our clubs fault becuase a few years back the club ran into serious problems (so much so it had to be re named etc)  so we have been left with that burden.

Tbh its not the funding part of the club I dislike here but but the fact that the comunication is sooo much lacking. I only normaly know whats going on becuase i know a few of the 'high up' guys from sailing when we were young and one of the yachting guys from house hunting.

But you cannot expect the casual and begginer sailors to keep coming if you dont let them know whats going on. I also think that the uni's putting the focus on team racing etc is wrong. admitidly you cant expect them to provide boats for everyone to fleet race in but since freshers here arent generaly allowed cars it ebcomes hard to attempt to fleet race even if they want to. Maybe having a few links with the local dinghy clubs would help to keep the core sailors who jsut didnt make it to the team racing teams involved. And also give the team racers a chance at trying their fleet racing skills - as these are stil very important in team racing but very very easily forgotten.

Ok rant over....

Footer on that site made me chuckle ....

© 2006 Turn-turtle.com | Site by: http://www.alloneword.uk.net/ - alloneword

I'm at Southampton Uni (there may have been some confusion between this and Solent earlier in the thread) and on the BUSailingA Committee. So feel free to judge me now.

Uni Sports funding comes to some sports clubs from their AUs. The money gets given to the AUs by a central body, I believe based on the number of BUSportA points that each Uni wins. If a sport wins lots of points therefore, the University 'reward' it with a relatively large budget.

However it is possible to win/compete without this. Cambridge Uni, won BUSA Teamracing and 2nd Yachting in 2006, recieved little/no money from their AU. Oxford get a new flight of boats every other year and recieve little or no money. They are able to do this through sponsorship and offering memebership of the club to old boys for a small yearly fee.

The RYA do support student sailing through BUSA. A secretary organises most of the admin (and takes more of her time than the RYA should let her!) and they support BUSA events, especially the Matchracing.

Clubs may be tricky to get involved with but I have found them the best way to make friends in other years and widen your social circle through other Unis.

not always pratical and in one case the complete opposite end of thecountry to the particualr uni in question

always found a fair mix , it's also a function of schools sailing provision  and local clubs involvement  with the  community that have an effect.

because there was schools sailing provision it got me and by extension my brother and my (now departed) dad into sailing ...

new boat might cost  the greater proprtion of  the  annual wage of the average person but a  decent enough  laser / topper/  Ent /GP / N12  or even a Fireball can be had  for  1000gbp ... especially if the the inital aim is a boat to sail and do a bit of club racing ...

club sailing especially inland isn't necessarily aobut the  latest bit of kit  or the newest fastest  boats ... but still doesn't stop there being good sailing  and good sailors at these clubs or perhaps having national level sailors i nthe club and a world champion havign started out at a club isn't enough ...

was this about 5 -10 years ago  becasue despite membership of  Uni sialing clubs i never heard aobut it , never mind  talk of gettign crews up - again how practical would it be for a yorkshire or Northern uni to take part? - especially given that many sciene , engineering and all health professional students  would need to be back  at uni for 0900 monday morning?

odd then that i could out boat handle all the team racing  'hot shots'   there then ... as for spped most had appaling  wind  awareness  they were more interested in their little play book of pushing the RRS to breaking point  than sailing 

 you are talking like  those sailing instructors who believe that  mastery of the instructing side makes them a god of sailing   despite the fact their  wind awareness and  innate  sailing ability is stuck somewhere around level 3

used to really upset a coupel of the lads i sailed at school with  when me and my then helm  would  siail them off the water in a  late pre baggy  N12  vs their shiny L2R  becasue of their shocking boat handling skills and complete lack of wind and tactical awarness - why  pure time on the water  - yes my helm and I could and did instruct but we aere also  out  on the water racing as much as we could as well  whether together ( until we really did get too heavy for the n12) or alone in  respective lasers ...

except of course when the trials are formalities to answer any accusation of bias  and don't concentrate on testign sailing ability but instead on whose has memorised the 'public schoolboys book of rrs wheezes and set piece team racing  tactics'

obviously much improved from the recent past then

depends if you let them

you obviously haven't read  or understood a single thing i said ...

as for sailing quickly around short courses  obviously sailing on a relatively  modestly sized inland water ( rendered in fact into two linked wayters    other than a couple of very limited wind conditions ,  and having beeen all the way through both sides of the RYA system  ( up to winter training on the racing side) counts for nothing  when sailing at a university is dominated by the 'sloanes' who have  already acgreed next years team durign the summer