Ovington thingy.....

Okay- fair enough; anyone got ten grand for philanthropic sailing misadventure?

I used to agree with you for all the anti-elitist reasons you cite, but my attitude towards the RYA has softened somewhat now I'm more aware of their wider contribution to sailing outside of the performance filtering, which actually doesn't make up the majority of their output as we may think.

Having spent former time with faceless Whitehall bureaucrats, I can assure you wouldn't want them 'running sailing' as would be necessary in our litigious culture/society if it weren't for the RYA acting custodian

Well, it needn't cost ten grand from any one person in particular.

Let's just say a series got underwritten, then the decision had to be taken as to which craft were selected as 'suitable' the manufacturers of said class could be tapped up for entry, then a manufacturers prize be awarded on the basis of the one with the most of the said craft in the top ten, kind of formula 1 style.

Year one would have to be on existing stuff, but year two could be boats developed specifically for the task, that way we get a hot bed of development with new stuff coming out for the future. The kids get an alternate to RYAdom.

we don't need yet another class, there are too many classes already.  what's needed is for more young people to join up to some of the classes we already have.  This might mean some of the lesser classes fall by the wayside, but that's the way of the world.

This thread seems to assume that the kids don't have a mind of their own; they do, and they are already sailing in the classes they choose because they like them, not because the RYA says they must.  They certainly don't need another manufacturer to creat something flashy and 'cool' that they just won't be able to afford.

90 29ers seems like the kids are having a good time ...