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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Expensive Sports...
    Posted: 22 Sep 16 at 10:29pm
Originally posted by DiscoBall

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What's the alternative ... picking up adult newbies off of courses only to be stitched come winter time and they've all ticked 'sailing' on their bucket list?  
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Well we could all just argue about PY over and over and over (and over) again...

I think you're way off about the adult beginners. My local kayak clubs racing section was equally sceptical about running an adult begin racing course (it's a sport with almost identical demographic problems and expensive, difficult to use kit). A year on we have over 50% of the original course still racing and a similar hit ratio for the second course. Probably the biggest influx of new people they've seen for a very long time.

Sailing courses are pretty expensive - people have to be pretty motivated to do that. I suspect they then get put off when they realise how inward looking and disinterested in beginners most clubs are.


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The only couple to go from my club's beginner course who got into racing tell us that until my wife and I (also newbs to the club) went over to talk to them, they had basically been completely ignored. They love the sport, bought their own boat, and then got left behind both on the water and in the clubhouse afterwards. 

Now they have both crewed our boat, I've crewed their boat, and we see each other socially off the water. But it's hard for a small group of people to overcome the issue that the club has a whole is not welcoming, and it's hard to see how one can overcome that. We've basically given up and will probably not re-join or do club racing this season.

It's been an eye-opener to move away from our old club when we moved house. People who dropped in at our old club often used to say how different it was to go to check out a club and have people come up and chat to them. Many people raced old boats, and that was completely accepted. Partly for that reason, it actually has more boats and more members than it did in the '80s, when dinghy sailing was generally much stronger.  

The sad thing is that I get the impression that our new club is more typical of the sport as a whole than our old one. Of course, if you listen to some people in the industry there is a very simple cure to the whole problem. Next time someone wonders about sailing, just show them the latest foiling cat that costs a mere year's salary, and they'll jump at it! Dead






Edited by Chris 249 - 22 Sep 16 at 10:33pm
sailcraftblog.wordpress.com

The history and design of the racing dinghy.
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Do Different View Drop Down
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Posts: 1312 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Do Different Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Sep 16 at 11:04pm
Originally posted by craiggo

Having sailed all manner of boats incl. Graduates, Lasers, ISO, Int 14, RS600, 49er, RS700 I now sail a Graduate and an OK. Both traditional boats and both somewhat slower than many of my previous boats. The thing is that these boats are no less rewarding. Sure they don't have the initial kerb appeal, but you don't watch your boat sailing, you actively participate in sailing it so a) it doesn't matter what it looks like and b) it doesn't actually matter how fast it is. The key thing is that it feels good and keeps you entertained.

For me the thing that is killing entry to the sport is the misguided belief that you need the qualifications before you race. The only sailing course I have done was a joint services comp. crew which was frankly just a free holiday, and yet I have somehow survived dinghy racing for 35yrs. Rather than simply churning people through courses we need to just get them out crewing for people.
But the next issue is that an awful lot of wannabe sailors want to helm and don't seem to have any interest in crewing, so even when offered opportunities they turn them down because they want the glory job of steering.

Of course all of this is mixed with the desire for instant gratification. People expect to have a chance of winning on their 2nd sail, but that's just madness unless you are iGRF ;)

Somehow we need to get people crewing and we need boats like Ents, Grads, Fireflies and Albacores to get people in.

Thumbs Up I wouldn't find fault with courses because I respect the time and effort our unpaid instructors put in. BUT Doing a course is only a small element of learning to sail and race. Unless you are particularly gifted you can multiply the hours spent on a course by 5 if a youngster and 10 in a late entrant for muscle memory and confidence to become established. Crewing can play a useful part in getting this time on the water. 
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JimC View Drop Down
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Posts: 6662 		Post Options Post Options   Quote JimC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 22 Sep 16 at 11:19pm
Originally posted by Chris 249

if you listen to some people in the industry there is a very simple cure ... latest foiling cat that costs a mere year's salary


Don't see much of that from the people who actually sell boats though do we...
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8956 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 7:42am
Courses are there to put the building blocks in place so that you can learn more quickly, with fewer dead ends and bad habits. Sadly, they are treated as end goals in themselves, not as beginnings. And sadly, many centres perpetuate that idea.
Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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Posts: 1312 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Do Different Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 8:48am
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gordon1277 View Drop Down
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Posts: 665 		Post Options Post Options   Quote gordon1277 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 9:21am
Some are mentioning the cost of courses being prohibitive, I think we went down the wrong route a few years ago at Lee by doing a £60 memebership and very cheap level 1 and 2 courses with the following years membership at the normal I think £120 ish for a single adult.
So lots of volunteer time training half hearted people ticking a bucket list,
club training boats given a good hammering for virtually no people staying the following year as for them buying a boat and joining in!
Making things to cheap is not always a good thing.
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getafix View Drop Down
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Posts: 2143 		Post Options Post Options   Quote getafix Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 9:42am
while I'm never going to argue that dinghy racing is a cheap sport I do think people get side tracked by the cost of equipment issue and this thread picks up on the same causes I have in mind when the debate comes around (and around and around but less often that PY) about 'increasing participation.  I like to be consistent, so here goes: we need less sailing clubs in this country.  This would concentrate sailors of all types, including the friendly ones who actually talk to and encourage newbies, into less places, making them much easier for newbies to find.  More members should equal more income, enabling clubs to have better on-shore facilities (a key part in encouraging people from outside in - changing in a portacabin or drafty old shack in January is for serious devotees only).

Most motor racing, anything to do with horses, a lot of carbon road bikes and triathlon all have hefty equipment costs, to name but a few (rowing would be another).  I don't think equipment costs are the key differentiator.  I know of a couple who spent about 6k last year traveling and bird watching.  You can get a lot of sailing in for 6k a year.
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rich96 View Drop Down
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Posts: 596 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rich96 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 10:01am
It is commonly recognised that if you have your child in a football academy you should budget £5-7K a year - most of this is travel, time off work etc (3 - 4 sessions a week plus games)

I guess that might equate fairly well with youth sailing at a decent level overall ?
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Sam.Spoons View Drop Down
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Posts: 3401 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Sam.Spoons Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 10:38am
Originally posted by getafix

so here goes: we need less sailing clubs in this country.  This would concentrate sailors of all types, including the friendly ones who actually talk to and encourage newbies, into less places, making them much easier for newbies to find.  More members should equal more income, enabling clubs to have better on-shore facilities (a key part in encouraging people from outside in - changing in a portacabin or drafty old shack in January is for serious devotees only).

I'm not sure I'm terribly comfortable with that idea but it does make a strange kind of sense. But, it ain't gonna happen unless clubs close down due to lack of members (sad for the few remaining loyal members) or two clubs sharing a water amalgamate (as happened to the club I was a member of in my youth). The latter can only happen where two clubs are on the same pond, river or bit of coast so it's not going to make much difference to the overall number of clubs in the UK.
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AlanH View Drop Down
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Posts: 84 		Post Options Post Options   Quote AlanH Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 23 Sep 16 at 10:54am
Fraternal greetings to Craiggo above. I've just acquired a one third stake in Graduate 2918, for princely sum of £150. For all three of the co owners, its a second boat, hence used only occasionally by each of us. I normally race an Osprey, but the Grad will let me cruise singlehanded, or take other ppl out for shotties. So sharing purchase cost of a boat is an easy way of reducing the costs of the sport, at least the initial boat purchase. In UK we have loads of boats up to 30 or 40 years old which are still in good sailing condition, plus a lot of 90s designs like ISOs which are now unfashionable, and hence very cheap, but fun. Quite agree you can learn plenty in slow boats.
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