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 Topic: Americas cupPosted: 03 Nov 15 at 7:26am |
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I was in Auckland in 1995 for the ticker tape parade after winning the AC. It was immense, like most of the population was there to congratulate the team. The pride and enthusiasm was like nothing I've experienced before or since. It must have had an effect on sailing take up in NZ. Surely.
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JimC
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Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6662 |
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 8:08am |
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I have a concern that in the UK that a big growth in junior classes may be masking a drop in adult participation. Go back 25 years and the biggest adult Champs fleets were far larger than they are now, and the junior fleets far smaller.
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blueboy
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Joined: 27 Aug 10 Online Status: Offline Posts: 512 |
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 8:29am |
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Plenty of youth at my club. Plenty of grey hairs too. It's the 20-, 30- and 40-year olds who are missing. It seems to be the same everywhere. Student loans, house prices, the ease of travel using cheap flights and the expectation that dad will spend more time with children than previous generations combine to form a perfect storm here.
That's why health of youth classes isn't the key indicator. It's health of adult classes we should be worrying about. Edited by blueboy - 03 Nov 15 at 8:30am |
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 8:45am |
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I agree Jim. It seems almost like dinghy sailing is becoming a junior sport.
There are still plenty of over 45s, but whether that is an ageing population that will eventually disappear or a sustainable demographic I'm not sure. In other words will the current youth return in a generations time to go sailing again, or will they stay on the shore whilst their kids learn to sail? Maybe we're becoming more like the US and grown ups are meant to have a bit of lead under them? |
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blueboy
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 9:31am |
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"Maybe we're becoming more like the US and grown ups are meant to have a bit of lead under them?"
If you want to dry-sail a small keelboat/sportsboat to sail on the Solent you are now not going to be spending much less than £7-8K a year, not including depreciation. That's berthing and a couple of replacement sails. OK a bit less if you get lucky with a space at a club, those are limited. The cost has continued to ratchet up even as the previously huge Solent sportsboat fleets have collapsed. The vast majority of previous owners, of whom I was one, have exited the game and with smaller fleets the attraction to new owners is much less than previously. You are really looking at a 1%ers game now even for a small racing keelboat. Back to where it was before GRP was invented. Edited by blueboy - 03 Nov 15 at 10:14am |
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turnturtle
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 9:54am |
some will, most won't- maybe more won't than in previous generations, that would be my perception anyway. The critical factor will always be of those who do, or do manage to sustain their sailing addiction through early adulthood, how many will introduce their kids to the sport? I know I'm 'not doing my bit' in this regard, and even in this little enclave I don't think I'm alone. I just don't see the point of forcing the issue when there's other sports and pastimes the kids want to do instead- they only get one childhood. As a result, I sold my main boat earlier this year - and truth is, none of us are missing it, I'm certainly glad to be free from the marina fees for what turned out to be 6 sails a year once we were restricted to school holidays. Will we ever buy another keelboat or a family dinghy/dinghies? I can't see it personally, so I'd imagine a sport that's four generations deep in my family stops when I sell the final solo.
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Chris 249
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 10:47am |
There was euphoria here after our AC win, and our Games, and I believe after your extremely successful Games - but plenty of studies show that the Olympic euphoria did not translate to significant increase in sports participation. There was a peak here in Lasers, windsurfers and IOR boats after we won the AC, but whether they were related to the AC is unclear. I suspect not since the boards were already growing and the IOR fleet had also been growing for many years. Both also dropped in numbers soon after. Surely if the halo effect is strong, objective evidence should be easy to find. The fact that it has never been presented leads some of us to wonder whether it exists. The other issue is that only one country wins the AC, so it's probably not a gain for sailing as a sport - merely for sailing in one country at a time. Finally, in '95 the boats were much more closely related to the typical boat of the time than the current AC boats are, so people could arguably look at them and go and get aboard something fairly similar down at their local clubs. Will that work with the current boats? Edited by Chris 249 - 03 Nov 15 at 10:56am |
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turnturtle
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Posted: 03 Nov 15 at 11:12am |
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Will it work with the current boats? Secondly I can only see it as positive from the engineering attraction - I think we need to acknowledge that a part of this overall sport is the technology race in itself - and there's no harm in that. Development Classes and One Designs have co-existed for long enough for us all to accept each other's preferences- and in the main, we don't feel the need to sl*g each other off for them. So when you see the quality of the engineering media be presented certainly here by Team BAR, you definitely get the impression this is good industrial cooperation with wider social implication and economic future proofing - if sailing is presented as in someway closer to the mainstream, then its something which young engineers and scientists can aspire to irrespective of their background and whether their grandad bought them an RS Tera for their 8th birthday. |
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Chris 249
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Posted: 05 Nov 15 at 11:00pm |
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It's POSSIBLE that the hyper-performance approach will work in attracting people into the sport - but to me the point is that we are being told that it DOES work and it WILL work, but we are not being given any objective evidence to prove it. If the modern AC was so effective in improving participation then why is participation not growing? If the high performance sailing does so much to attract yoof then why does a significant (albiet small) sailing nation like NZ have just a dozen entries in the 29er nats and 3 or less at the Nacra 17 nats? Secondly, there is evidence that there is a serious risk in separating the marquee event too far from the form of the sport most people can do. The most popular "gear intensive" racing sports are ones like cycling, where the gear in the marquee event is highly restricted so that it can also be used by weekend warriors. At the other end of the scale is car racing, which is a tiny sport considering the vast sums thrown at it by the enormous parent industry, and the fact that most adults can drive. You can still have a technology race without going to foiling wingmasted cats, and personally I can't see how such craft, which are completely impractical for all but the most minute percentage of sailors, can actually present the sport as "some way closer to the mainstream." But, to repeat myself, if the hyper-performance pro route was going to have the benefits people claimed, then why aren't we seeing sailing growing in the country that followed that route more than anywhere else? |
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Rupert
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Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956 |
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Posted: 06 Nov 15 at 8:37am |
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How many actual, real, regular sailors are inspired by the AC? Has anyone on here sailed more because of BAR, or any other team?
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