RIP Y&Ying forum?

1) the for sale pages - now for free on class websites, or not for free on Apollo Duck

2) race reports -now on website, or results accessible on club websites

3) Straham Soanes (hope I spelt his name correctly) profiles, which made heroes out of dinghy sailors, in a way that is not achieved today

4) knowledgeable articles by the likes of Michael Mac

5) brilliant columns by Bob Fisher and Jack Knights

Much though we would loved it, it is not possible to recreate these halcyon days … anymore than David Gilmour appearing on the same stage as Roger Waters 

Your comment "I don't get why the animosity toward Y&Y and the forum" is spot on! Whatever the situation over with the paper magazine (now all but swallowed up by Sailing Today) the Y&Y site works well to reflect not only the wider international scene which people follow from the site in their tens of thousands (the traffic stats for the AC, Vendee and other headline events make this very clear)  but it is also the best coverage of the domestic scene. There's two points here - those classes that send in either naff reports or no report at all can hardly point the finger at the website and say that we're not reflecting what is happening around our clubs. Secondly, the old ways of doing reports, with "Smith takes Jones up the beat and loses it to Blogs along the reach" just doesn't cut it any longer - even in the virtual world you can see the eyes glazing over.

So actually Davidyacht, I don't get it either! There's very little of the celebrity endorsement being presented,  but those adverts that do feature pay the way not only for the site, but for the better quality content. The Times and Telegraph have both changed to paid access for most of their content, as dear old Rupert Murdoch said, if you want independent journalists then somehow they have to be paid for!

This is very dear to my own thinking. Be it with the history of dinghy development articles or the 'Wise Men' series the website provides a platform for a degree of 'depth of detail' in the articles that you wouldn't get elsewhere, as seen recently when what might otherwise have been a passing single paragraph obituary on Alec Stone become a fully-fledged piece with multiple pictures. If you don't want read in depth about Hornets, cat history (a multi-parter there) more on the radical minds behind dinghy development and the wider challenges that our sport has faced in the past - and how that relates to the future, then fine, no one is forcing you to. But the feedback says that there are far more people out there that DO want not just the hot topics of the day, but the thought provoking, detailed pieces so I guess their numbers will carry the day!

Dougaldog.