Demise of club level class racing?

The world has changed and not just in the last few months.  Club dinghy racing IS about handicap these days but with individual classes still enjoying their own battles within.  This is nothing new imo and is not a threat to fleet racing at all  ..... where it counts at Open and Championship level.  The paradigm today is that club racing is where you practice and have club based fun and rivalries  in mixed handicap fleets - AND you then get out and strut your stuff on the open one class platform several times each season .. including at Chmpionship level.

It is much better than simply lining up with the same old lags (often in the same boring order at the finish) in a possibly diminished twilight single class fleet every week locally.  And this change has been decades in the making and is nothing to be particularly worried about.    I can hark back with the best of them to fleet racing in the 70's if I want as well (!) .. usually at bar-side before the bloody virus interupted normality.  However that is just boring for me as much as any trappped (and bored) listener.   But it does not rewind the clock and never did ... remember there is still absolutely nothing stopping any booming class locally getting their 'own' start today.  But if they cannot sustain the numbers at least 90% of the time it is just hollow and conversally a poor advert for any class involved.  Enjoy club racing for what it is today - but still chase after the purist one-class stuff a few times each year if you want.  That is where you find the best competition anyway surely ? 

Still, had a 78 boat handicap race down the further reaches of the harbour on Saturday was great. There were 3 other 800s to race directly against. 

Luckily I pay little attention to handicap results, otherwise it would have been quite a  demoralising experience. I find it's much better to just believe I sailed the best out of everyone and chalk up any results that say otherwise as a glitch in matrix 

Speaking to the Dutch (who probably have more active boats than the UK) they do not have anything which equates directly to our weekly Club racing. They seem to have facilities closer to sports clubs where they sail and practise more or less on their own. Somewhat like the model described by Cirrus, coming together at race meetings a few times through the season.

I quite like it and by default of being billy-no-mates at my present club find that I am pretty immune to PY argy bargy. At the European meetings we've attended we mostly manage to make mid fleet and on a good week might nudge just little higher.