The Foiling 101

Good grief. Too many categories already. What it actually needs is a lot more people posting. · Originally posted by tgruitt

   It's interesting the conversation which is running in the background around bringing new people into the sport and keeping them.As said people seem to want instant success and sailing is a very strange sport in that sense.
Other sports I have competed in the likes of tennis, rowing there is an ability based system of competition where in reality you are competing against people which are within the same perceived ability as yourself. Rowing has a "division" type system and tennis has ratings.
In sailing you could have someone who has sailed for a year competing against sailors who are as much as professional and maybe sailed since before they went to school and have spent years in the "squads". There is the Gold/Silver/Bronze fleets in some of the bigger events, however there is lack of numbers to really make this work properly.

There seems to be an acceptance that people leave the sport when they don't see instant success. 
Sailing is a relatively difficult skill set to achieve competence in, with differing conditions, a fair bit of "theory" and allot of feel. Essentially it is like learning to drive, then expecting to race in the BTCC the following week. For newcomers in a sailing boat, there is a fair bit going on, which us more experienced sailors tend to manage subconsciously, again very much like driving (remember how fast the first time you did 60 on a dual carriage way felt like, where after a year or two it feels normal).

With this in mind, is the way we introduce people into the sport wrong? The RYA path of pushing single handers and getting everyone to helm straight off. To the point that when they come to racing, they end up sailing by themselves around at the back of the fleet with everyone dissapearing off into the distance. Having taken up sailing in my mid to late twenties, and having this happen to me in my Laser. It is a bit soul destroying and leads to the point where I question myself if I was really having fun, and only if somebody was as bad as me.

I have spent the last 5 years mainly crewing for better more experienced helms, most of whome came through that squad, coached system. In that time I have had some great close racing, some very decent results and allot of fun.

Is the older way of introducing new people to the sport, through crewing for others not a better way into the sport?