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Is the F In Fun going to be lacking in the future? |
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davidyacht 
Really should get out more 
Joined: 29 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1345 |
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 Topic: Is the F In Fun going to be lacking in the future?Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 1:20pm |
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Dougal's article makes interesting reading and hits quite a few mails on the head. Having just been present at a 51 Merlin Silver Tiller Open at Salcombe, it seems to me that most of the youngsters sticking with dinghy sailing are 2nd and 3rd generations of families who were at the forefront of our sport in the 70's and 80's. Maybe they have seen the fun that can be had.
The big problem as I see it is that the huge numbers participating in Youth Sailing have no experience of the fun that can be had ... maybe as a consequence of spending their formative years in singlehanders, and having lettle exposure to beer (and other vices) in class cultures that discourage youthful indiscretion. Maybe the big initiative should be to grab those being spat out of Youth Sailing and get them into the mainstream of dinghy racing?
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Happily living in the past
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pompeysailor
Posting king 
Joined: 16 Jul 07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 101 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 2:09pm |
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I was lucky that I was given the option at 16 of 420 or Fireball - Chose Fireball and had an absolute blast with the fleet on and off the water! Also feel I learn't a lot more racing against the likes of Pinnell, Hall, DJ, Horey, Rush etc.
Also learn't essential life skills like: Madras Eating, How many people can fit in a volvo to drive to town, sleeping in boats, never to have 2 beers in your hand, yard of ale drinking etc etc. |
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Formerly - OK 2145 Phantom 1437, Blaze 819, Fireball 14668, Mirror 54145
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SUGmeister
Sailwave Moderators
Joined: 08 Jun 07 Online Status: Offline Posts: 265 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 2:11pm |
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I think you've got to decide which is more fun. the thrill of close competitive racing or the thrill of the actual sailing experience.
Back in the 70s sailing slow unexciting Enterprises in the Thames Valley Circuit the thrill of the racing was just great, every few weeks open meetings with 30/40/50 entries was just immense fun. Would I swap that for the occasional sail in a foiling moth? No.
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Simon SUGmeister
I wondered why the baseball kept getting bigger. Then it hit me. |
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fab100
Really should get out more
Joined: 15 Mar 11 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1005 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 2:17pm |
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Yup, good example of where parents can both protect their kids (from the evils of chew-'em-up, spit-'em-out zone squads and school-classroom-esk training) and show them where the craic lies (which certainly ain't straight home after the race and early to bed in a futile 15 year medal campaign)
We've probably all got a better attitude to install about winning than the no-medal-hope-don't-bother approach too. So AFAIAC, sooner sailing is out of the Olympics the better By the time they are spat out of YS David, the damage is usually done and it's too late. Their induction message should that sailing is a sport for life, has many facets of which medals are a statistical irrelevance. Not everyone who has a houseplant on their windowsill is expected to pursue a Chelsea Flower Show Gold Medal, but sailing is pretty much the opposite (because sailing medals are the only thing that gets measured. The RYA's key-performance-indicator for Youth Sailing should be the percentage of people entering the system that are still sailing 10, 20 and 30 years later (and compare to those who have avoided the system). That would show the medals are not worth the collateral damage.
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fab100
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Joined: 15 Mar 11 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1005 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 2:30pm |
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Not point I am a bit passionate about this.
I cannot believe I am saying this, but I agree with iGRF. The RYA does not serve sailing clubs interests (for reasons above). If they won't change, clubs and Class Associations should break away and form our own body and compete to protect the future of clubs, classes and small boat sailing. Otherwise, when our generation is gone, sailing will be decimated, 9 out of 10 clubs will die. No one for club committees/management, no race officers or safety boat drivers, no trainers for beginner courses. Membership income will also be more than halved and the financials will no longer stack up either. However, there will be a business opportunity for someone, they'd be paid to ship no longer wanted dinghies somewhere more sailing-enlightened
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davidyacht
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Joined: 29 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1345 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 3:24pm |
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Along the same lines; when we were younger and Billy the Funnel was enjoying his heyday, people that we regarded as old, were merely middle aged ... our aging demographic means that there is an increasing chasm between the entry into adult sailing and the baby boomers hanging on at the other end of the system.
Most of us were enthused at club level, at the Aldenhams and Frenshams ... probably got mentored by the club elders (who were actually younger than we are now), which encouraged us to get involved with the adult classes ... with added confidence and the encouragement of beer and women we joined the open and national circuit which has led to a lifetime of social activity and sport. I dont see many treading that pathway now, probably due to youth racing being taken away from the clubs, and youth training at club level having a disconect with the racing scene. I agree that the RYA is myopic, but the problem is mainly down to Sport England, and how it funds. I had the privilege to attend a talk by Hannah Mills last week, and I thought it quite sad that she did not seem to attach as miuch importance to being a World Champion compared to an Olympic Champion, when to the purist winning a World Championship is a mighty fine acheivement ... much the same applies to Olympic Cycling where by all accounts all of the Olympic funded bikes are broken, and our team have to use out of date kit. Picking up on a previous thread, if the RYA showed a greater commitment to supporting the complete pyramid structure of dinghy racing I would be far more willing to take my hand out of my pocket.
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fab100
Really should get out more
Joined: 15 Mar 11 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1005 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 3:47pm |
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"but the problem is mainly down to Sport England, and how it funds" - I don't mind them throwing money at Team GBR, but the Youth Squads are akin to the Pied Piper, malevolently taking away our kids, and that should be resisted at every turn. I don't care how much someone offers to pay me, I am not going to shoot myself in the foot. Our sport's management should apply the same principle or we should replace them.
I do understand Hannah's viewpoint though. The Olympics are on the telly (badly, but whatever) and a big fuss is made of medal winners on TV and the press (even sailing). Winning a worlds should be harder, in that there are no one-entry-per-nation limits, but if you win one and come home, most other sailors won't know, never mind the general public. As we know, Hannah's experienced both so is in a good position to judge. |
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turnturtle
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Joined: 05 Dec 14 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2538 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 3:49pm |
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It's easy to look at today's kids and say 'pah, look they don't know how to party like we did', 'where's the fun in their sailing???' etc.... you old boys who propped up your sailing with happy pills and 'free love' in the 70's probably said the same about my generation in the 90's and early 2000's as we bobbed nonchalantly to Spice Girls and Oasis tracks whilst downing our Alcopops through a straw.
It's easy to reminisce and assume your youth was better than the current generation. I guess it makes the ageing process less painful.
But I'd say today's teenagers have it made.... the boats are far better. Take the 29er... my god what an awesome boat for young adults to sail, and they're even cheap as chips now they've built up a critical mass. Then you've got the RS range of Aeros, 500s, 200s ... so much better than digging out a knackered Lark from the nettles, or resurrecting a wooden decked Fireball that was simply too water-rotten to burn on Guy Fawkes night. Sure, there's the youth squad scene, for all the damning and false expectation setting we cite here, I can't for one minute think that 360 out of 370 boats down in Hayling at the Youth Nationals are actually deluded enough to think they'll be the next Ben Ainslie. These kids wouldn't be going unless they wanted to, I say let them go and enjoy it whilst they still can. I bet most of them have a laugh n' a half... and so they should, they're kids! What's the reason why they don't return to dinghy sailing after uni? Well, I'd say that's a whole socio-economic debate that's geared towards f**king the newer generations over, but most here probably wouldn't want to read that as they sit in their homes 'worth' on average 10 times what they took a mortgage out for back in 1972. Here's one thought for a surrogate Friday afternoon though, perhaps one of the reasons why club sailing remains so unattractive to sub 30-somethings, (probably to most sub 50 somethings too), lots of old moaning blokes telling them it was so much better in their day; whilst punting over-priced, under-handicapped dross from the same era around a sh*tty pond in nowheresville..... Yep, mountain biking, five a side football, trekking, skiing, rock climbing, kite surfing..... they all suddenly become a hell of a lot more attractive. Edited by turnturtle - 13 Apr 17 at 3:54pm |
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fab100
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Joined: 15 Mar 11 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1005 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 4:36pm |
You are obviously at the wrong club Jimbo. And don't tell me it's about money; my perennial student son has 2 bikes, self-funded, that cost more (including trailer) than my aged but competitive enough RS200. Mountain biking, I sort of get, but road-biking, risking life and limb, pi$$ing-off lorries, buses and motorists in exchange for some endorphins? If we cannot make sailing more attractive than that as a sport, we are seriously doing something wrong. Also, read SUGmeister above, that was well put. But I'd add that an open every few weeks was something to look forward to. If you've been trawled all over the country, most weekends, from age 12 to squads at Burnham, Pwhelli, Portland et al I can well imagine you've had enough by 16. Teenagers seem to want to sleep at least half the time, in their beds, not whilst propped up in the back of a Volvo XC90 on another 5-hour trip out or home. "Done too much, much too young."
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davidyacht
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Joined: 29 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1345 |
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Posted: 13 Apr 17 at 4:37pm |
I am not disputing that these boats are fantastic, but are these boats really getting more of the younger demographic out on the water racing? I suspect this forum is pretty much exclusively used by said grupy bu**ers so I don't think it is too harmful to moan here. I would suspect that most of us are pretty enthusiastic and upbeat at our clubs. I accept that I sail what has become known as an old man's boat ... but I sail it because I believe that it offers the best singlehanded one-design competition locally and nationally.
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