No race officer sailing

Interesting I couldn't have said that windsurfing participants had reduced.

My fear remains that people increasingly have less free time and giving up a weekend to run racing for someone else will be low priority. Which reduces the numbers of people who do it, which instead of 1-2 per year becomes 2-3 then 3-4 and suddenly it isn't sustainable. So number of races reduces (I hear this at lots of clubs - "we now only race every second week")... Suddenly a windy weekend means you are racing monthly. Busy that weekend you might only race once in 6 weeks. It's no longer a regular activity. You de-skill. Your performance reduces. You loose interest....

Originally posted by polc1410 Interesting I couldn't have said that windsurfing participants had reduced.

Lots of racing windsurfers went on to become the performance skiff generation of the nineties and noughties. Wind surfers also became kitesurfers and any other action sport which caught their attention.

Winsurfers were totally neglected by their Governing body, who failed to fullfil their promise of opening up the waters of the country to them and many clubs closed their doors, to this day they've never been granted a racing yardstick. The Bullsh*t claim that their speed differential was too great put to the failed test of hypocrisy by foiling.

As for racing those of us that persevered down the years made do with rabbit starts and remembering where we came and who was in front and behind us.

There are growing classes still in other parts of the world(Kona, Windsurfer & LT) but every attempt at introducing them is frustrated by guess who. Unless the class was instantly Olympic, zero interest is shown, and it is f'king embarrassing when one shows up they've no idea about yet suddenly all their coaches become 'experts'.

So being the b**tard step child its always been, Windsurfing exists on the fringes at grass roots organisation level, goes nowhere near sailing clubs except on the odd distance event like the Round Hayling so hardly surprising it declined.

But now dingy racing of which I've only been interested in since relatively recently is also under similar threats from more of the same, rampant disinterest in grass roots, money only for yoof which is then discarded at age levels and jobs for the boys on the Olympic gravy train, heaven help them if sailing loses its Olympic slot.

So yes, we're all pretty much f**ked in the margins.

Edited by iGRF - 27 Dec 20 at 10:38pm

Do you really think 'Windsurfing' could have been organised? I have never seen any evidence that windsurfers have/had any interest in joining anything other than their mates for a jolly, would be like trying to Herd cats.

I've just taken up windsurfing. Normally if it was too windy to sail I'd not bother going to the club. But with alternatives restricted loads more people we out at HISC on boards when the breeze became too much to sail. We had 50+ windsurfers smashing up and down the flat channel, so instead of sitting ashore I bought a board at the end of November lockdown.