Demographic changes?

We compromised and decided to sail all three days, although we did sacrifice quite a few racing days to go cruising on the yacht. 

Originally posted by 423zero My club changed to Saturday sailing due to members wishing to attend Church on Sunday.

At our Club in the early seventies when I was a kid, the adults were always asking each other on a Sunday if they would be at "Church" tonight. We always assumed that they really meant church. It transpired that Church was "The Woodcock" a pub which they repaired to after a bit of sailing interspersed with a lot of drinking at the Club.

How they got there, got home and got to work on Monday morning goodness only knows. Different times it has to be said.

The club had already changed to saturday when I started (but the church thing was the reason).

Originally posted by JohnJack How come Sunday is the traditional sailing day anyway?

Because in the those days people who worked in shops and the like were real human beings who were allowed to have lives and hobbies like anyone else.

Originally posted by JohnJack How come Sunday is the traditional sailing day anyway?

Quite simply Sunday was historically the day for doing your leisure activities.

Saturday you could go shopping with the family, go watch the Football/Rugby, many still had to work on Saturdays, get the DIY and gardening done etc etc.

Historically Sunday was your FREE day, no top flight sport back then on a Sunday, no shops open, no need to work etc etc

So people used to go Sailing on Sundays, play football in the park, go to the beach, whatever floats your boat...... but now Sunday time is not free, there are 1000s of other distractions from the shops, to taking impressionable kids to see the football, Sundays have changed from being days of leisure (when we went sailing), to just another ordinary day.

All this of course probably explains why the busiest time at our club, probably by a factor of 3 or 4 is Thursday evenings, racing turnouts on Thursday evenings are way way larger than Sundays.

Weekend sailing has now become a "hard core" activity, generally those who sail at the weekends are very dedicated to their sport and have long term established a habit of Sunday/Weekend sailing with their family/spouses.

Imagine in your 20's or 30's with a spouse and young family telling them your going to take up sailing, and you'll be out of the house from 9.00am till 5-6.00pm every Sunday, sometimes longer and sometimes for the whole weekend, and by the way your about to spend upwards of £5,000 on a boat. It's not going to go down too well is it, but if you say I'll just be a home a few hours late on a Thursday/Wednesday evening, and then only during the summer, you might just get away with it!....
Of course if your established behavior is going sailing every Sunday when you meet your spouse then they take that on as well, so your chances of continuing weekend sailing are better.