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Twenty years from now

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PeterG View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote PeterG Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Twenty years from now
    Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 9:39pm
what will be be sailing?

Twenty years from now I will have been set sail in my dinghy, which have burnt brightly for my Viking funeral. That does mean that I should probably change to something wooden between now and then, or an awful lot of nasty toxic fumes are going to be released. I think I'd go for something with a bit of class, an old Merlin or a Salcombe Yawl perhaps?


Edited by PeterG - 26 Jan 15 at 9:43pm
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Presuming Ed View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Presuming Ed Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 8:56pm
State of sailing in 20 years time depends on a few things: 

1) Oil price. If transport is massively more expensive than it is now, then a decline in open meeting sailing/& hopefully ?growth? in local, club sailing. Return of local classes? (Unlikely). 

2) Death of the middle market. "The best is the enemy of the good". Either foiling/foil assisted based ultra high performance (moth/A class) or relatively easy to sail for even more time pressurised people. 

3) (Hopefully) merging of 3Di type tape laying & 3d printing, 

4) Boat parks will still be largely full of rarely used bits of fibreglass. 

5) The Olympics will be all about entertainment, with a minor nod to sporting fairness. Hopefully, the Olympic tail will stop wagging the dog. Unlikely, though. 
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Post Options Post Options   Quote davidyacht Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 3:46pm
Originally posted by iiiitick

I hope to be around in 20 years time at 89, after all my mother is 95 on Thursday but I doubt if I will be sailing. By then my duties will involve patronising and giving grumpy advice based on a successful career that never actually happened. 

My prediction is that sailing will be split with young athletic types sailing ever more extreme boats and old farts plodding round in more pedestrian stuff. In between these two sailing will fade under competition from other pastimes.

This has nothing to do with anything but I intend to go back to Venice every year until I do die. Last Thursday we were at the fish market watching a team of three blokes pulling out rotten mooring posts and replacing them with new. They had an old steel barge thing with a Hiab on it, loads of rusty chain and thick three strand manila rope, all frayed and muddy. There were no hard hats, no high viz jackets and no lifejackets. There were great lumps of wood being swung through the air and chains hurling about...all this just next to the public gondola ferry stop. We then took the gondola across the Grand Canal, all standing up as it picked its way through the heavy traffic. Again no lifejackets or even I life buoy....in fact I have never seen any emergency safety equipment in Venice. Long may it last!

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Post Options Post Options   Quote MerlinMags Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 3:03pm
Originally posted by Peaky

Sails will become colourful again.


And coloured hulls too? Please let that fashion return.

I predict 3D-printed boats are the norm in 20 years time. We're already seeing the beginnings of machines with multiple nozzles that can handle printing with two materials at once. I see boats with honeycomb double floors being printed with carbon thread inserted where needed, etc, etc.

Sailors over the age of 90 will still compete, in Illusion or 2.4m yachts where the rudder/strings are controlled by a couple of probes inserted into the brain.

Match racing will die out, and elements of early naval warfare will be introduced instead: each America's Cup yacht will have 14 cannon and you can blow away the opponents spars/foils/sails as desired, if you can't keep ahead.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote iiiitick Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 11:29am
I hope to be around in 20 years time at 89, after all my mother is 95 on Thursday but I doubt if I will be sailing. By then my duties will involve patronising and giving grumpy advice based on a successful career that never actually happened. 

My prediction is that sailing will be split with young athletic types sailing ever more extreme boats and old farts plodding round in more pedestrian stuff. In between these two sailing will fade under competition from other pastimes.

This has nothing to do with anything but I intend to go back to Venice every year until I do die. Last Thursday we were at the fish market watching a team of three blokes pulling out rotten mooring posts and replacing them with new. They had an old steel barge thing with a Hiab on it, loads of rusty chain and thick three strand manila rope, all frayed and muddy. There were no hard hats, no high viz jackets and no lifejackets. There were great lumps of wood being swung through the air and chains hurling about...all this just next to the public gondola ferry stop. We then took the gondola across the Grand Canal, all standing up as it picked its way through the heavy traffic. Again no lifejackets or even I life buoy....in fact I have never seen any emergency safety equipment in Venice. Long may it last!
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Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 10:58am
Change brings churn though.... We better damn well hope the new classes bring in enough fresh blood to keep the top of the pot full.... And that there's a more rewarding method of conducting racing for all this diversity than (bloody) PY...
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Woodbotherer View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Woodbotherer Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 10:55am
Why is the Merlin Rocket still around even? Simple Answer, nothing better has come along to scratch the particular itch that the Merlin delivers, which is that potent combination of a techy tool, close racing and high alcohol content in post race activities.

The other obvious feature is that it is a supreme bandit, protected from competition by the guardians of the status quo via their ultimate weapon of mass destruction for challengers the PYAG.

Destroy the PYAG and you might see some change. Wink

Merlin owners will ultimately pickle themselves into oblivion anyway..


Edited by Woodbotherer - 26 Jan 15 at 10:56am
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Dougaldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 10:46am
Having just spent most of the last 2 years doing the history of the Merlin Rocket, ready for their 70th Anniversary this year (and in the meantime starting a similar project for the 505)one of the observations that I made is on the cyclic nature of support. Interestingly, if you go back 20 years - the Merlin Rockets were in a pretty bad place, with a far from certain future. Yet, from those darker days, the class emerged, albeit somewhat different to before, but as a boat that would grow stronger and more entrenched in the niche it has created. Now it is not the job of the writer to be opinionated, so I avoided that pitfall, all bar a two page conclusion as a clearly separate tailpiece to the book. And yes, there I do look forward - to the next 30 years that will see the class celebrate a centenary in 2045. I have no doubt that the merlin Rocket will still be there and will look pretty similar to what we have now. Set against that, wooden boats will be a thing of the past, limited to some glorious examples competing on the classic circuit.

As for other classes, I can see that a good number will be gone by 2035 (many of them by 2025!) with some currently household names vanishing from view (and no, I'm not going to 'name names' - there would be an outcry, but it is not difficult to make a list) and even some classes that are highly cherished on here will by then be museum pieces.

The driving factor will be when the generation who used to sail in that 'golden era' - the days of the Holt and Proctor boats - are no longer around.... hmmnnn.... yes, then you can see the old defence mechanisms, of people spending half their life in one class, once that goes, change will happen more quickly!

D
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maxibuddah View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote maxibuddah Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 10:04am
I'd be s surprised if this forum is still about in 5 years
Everything I say is my opinion, honest
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turnturtle View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote turnturtle Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 26 Jan 15 at 9:44am
... you think this forum will be around in 20 years?  
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