Nationals Attendances

The class that thinks its at Warsash SC when its at Weston SC.

Small distance large difference.

I've just arrived up at Pwllheli and have been at the club today looking at the Merlin Nationals. Thinking that there might be a story here for me I was keen to find out the reasons for being there and why they thought others had stayed away. It is a complex topic, yet one that is very important to the health of our sport; maybe far too important to trivialize with a discourse on the price of fish and chips. This is now the 5th Championship that I have been at in the last 3 weeks (3 of those I've been RO for) and the one theme that comes up time and time again is 'value for money'. That isn't just financial value but that far more intangible "was it worth it" question. A good example of this was the Hornets around the corner at Colwyn Bay. Some questionable organisation and horribly sh*te weather left one stalwart in the class wondering why he had bothered. Then the final day gave perfect Hornet sailing and on speaking to him again, his attitude had changed, "This" he enthused "is what it is all about".

I really think our perception of the weather is a key factor. Back to the Merlins - they have had a run of championships with less than summery weather and I got a strong feeling that this was more of the same. I think the comments about Plas Heli - the sailing centre at Pwllheli were unhelpful - looking at it with a quizzical eye, it scores all round against both Weymouth and Hayling Island. Okay, it isn't South Coast but maybe that might be a stronger reason to come here than some of the over priced and over hyped so called 'popular venues'. Yet the other side of the argument is that the south coast fleshspots do have that added attraction. One of our most popular single handed classes can attract 130+ boats, yet a superbly organised event the following year, at a top club on the east coast, got jus over half that number.

Maybe the bigger question is if the decline in Nationals attendance is a symptom or a cause of the wider malaise that is impacting on dinghy racing. Cue the chorus of "we've never had it so good" but as one who spends his days looking at the sport, I've never seen it so bad!

Dougal/Ventnor/Isle of Wight