Dinghies in 2035

I was looking at the RYA participation survey a few days ago. I was shocked at how low small boat racing was compared to both canoeing and canal boating. 

This got me thinking, compared to dinghy racing both activities are less weather and schedule dependent. Both activities are also less dependant on other people and generally quicker to set up without the commitment of doing safety duties. 

So rather than focusing on performance in 2035 boats will make sailing more accessible with less time expensive. Every aspect of dinghy sailing needs looking at, maintenance, rigging time launching etc, but also clothing. Thin warm, durable and coated with anti bacterial nano something, never smells and doesn’t get wet, simply hung up after sailing to air. Boots excluded because stinky sailing boots are part on the fun. 

NASA, Space X and anyone else should be completely banned from thinking about going to Mars until we have sorted out weather forecasting so it is accurate to the hour, locally and spot on  four or five days out. More local weather stations feeding back true data into the algorithms would help. People have commitments and being able to plan in advance with certainty that that this Sunday they will be going sailing. Start times could become flexible and published on Wednesday: the Saturday 12.00 light wind race, the 10.00 Sunday heavy weather race. 

As many above have said single handed sailing will become more popular. Simpler boats with multiple rigs will continue to be the norm, not a direction I particularly like. I hope someone will have put the Herreshoff rig used by Dave Clark on the UFO on a proper boat. It has a lot of positive points, cheaper spars, minimal controls but still controllable.

Somewhere in my head there is an idea for intelligent tell tales maybe a fabric, maybe electronic but something that changes colours in response to flow over the sail. 

For club racing we could see the end of race officers, automatic starting and race tracking doing all the grunt, you just hand in your race logger at the end of the day. Bar sails will go up as the post race analysis can be replayed on a big tv screen. This will reduce duties but obviously safety still required and they will also lay the computer start marks. 

What is certain is that CVDRA will be the growth area as people see the value of keeping old boats going. Perhaps this could link to PY system that allows for the age of the boat maybe combined with more personal handicap racing. Never got into golf but I am sure there are lessons to be learnt there .

Whatever there will still be a hard core of club dinghy sailors