Kids in sailing

29er costs cover two sailors so you can share costs. That helps.

I've done my fair share of rescuing old wrecks from the boat park, painting them in the back garden and taking them to the national champs, only to come very nearly last but having a v. good time doing it. Had some good racing with the boats around us.

I think non-sailing parents have a mountain to climb, whichever way you look at it, especially once the kids have a boat to maintain, whether it's wooden or something else.

And whilst I agree that cost is a key issue, there are advantages to getting kids into a fleet of similar boats, I mean not handicap and not menagerie. I think class racing is more exciting than handicap. Even if you're not into racing, then perhaps sailing in a fleet is more sociable. It's easier to maintain a fleet of similar boats. And if you do all decide to go to an open meeting or a championship week or a regatta week then your group will all be on the same start line, same place, same time. Hence fun.

So I think maybe it all comes down to the boats and who owns them and who looks after them.

Have fun

Tessa

I’m struggling to see the link here. Ok given exams may take a couple of months out of sailing, but drinking and parties?? As far as I know most parties go on at night, and sailing during the day. I managed to sail pretty regularly until about 22 and never felt my social life was compromised. Besides there’s nothing better than going sailing to cure a hangover. Girlfriends of course are a different matter ;-).

So this leads me to believe the two main issues are accessibility and cost.

i know what you mean as sailing hasnt stopped my social life either. however we are/werent not the average 'youf' are we? as for girlfriends, well they present an altogether different distraction. basically youths find drinking, driving and seeing their friends more fun than sailing. why is this? well i think its because there are not enough 'fun' boats sailed in the RYA system. the cats are basically dead leaving 420 (not good unless its breezy) or 29ers (some simply arent comitted enough/ cant find a crew etc).

but yes, cost has a huge impact and often requires input from parents. given £4k what percentage of youths would buy a boat over a car? very few (my friends couldnt understand why i bought my boat and waited to save up for my car.....

So we are back to boats again!  I think it's a mixture of things for each class of boat. For example:

Perhaps some boats have a wider choice of suitable sailing venues - a cat on a pond?

Maybe some boats benefit from being selected by ISAF (not just the RYA) for youth competitions.

Surely some boats benefit from having been established as racing class for a long time, so that it's eay to find the back up network of chandlers supplying spares and there may be more sailing instructors and coaches who do actually know something about the class of boat, rather than sailing in general.

On the cost side, perhaps it's not not just the initial cost. Suppose you bite the bullet and buy a boat - then's the surprise factor of sunddenly having to replace an expensively broken mast or foil or sail. People on tight budgets cannot cope easily with uncertainities. Sometimes there are pleasant surprises like grants available. And the final surprise - or not - might be the resale value of your well sailed boat a few years down the line. Take a look and see whether old boats still win prizes or do they fail to perform as they age?

Then there's the social side of each class or club - as mentioned earlier in this thread, that's probably a big factor  ...

Tessa