Uni boats/ Firefly buying?

we were hoping for fund raising events. However its a bit limited as our uni bar is run by an outside company (hence the £2 a pint unlike other unis).

I was thinking if we managed to run say 2 level1/2 courses a term, both filled up costing us £25 a head and charging say £50-80. That would give us nice margins (quoted by stithians club if we supply all bar 1 instructor). If we were to then save the last terms J24 hire with the view to buying a fleet of firelys the next year (with the extra budget).

With regards to outside funding, what type of creative, community involvement would be needed? Could we run courses open to the public yet still make healthy profits to keep upgrading/expanding? Is there anyone/anthing specific we need to be targeting or including to secure funding?

TT, your idea about upping prices seems good to me. We can easily charge £10/15 membership if we include a free taster sail within the first week or 2. Should we look to charge per sail, or membership allowing you unlimited access to sailing/racing (courses extra)?

Thanks for all your help, im writing it all down ready for our meeting in the next few weeks.

We currently use a J24 from a local sailing school at a cost of £900 a term!!!!

As it stands now we are hoping to be running RYA level 1/2 courses elsewhere at £25 per head. Having contacted the J24 class association they are very keen to give/lend us a boat for training - the nationals are in falmouth next year. However we do not know when we might get this.

Given our situation we are going to keep the J24 for another term. The idea being that we can raise enough money through running courses etc that we can afford a few boats. Royal corwall yacht club are putting in a grant for dinghies. If this goes through then we have powerboat and dinghy acess for minimal cost. . .

Where do you think we should go with this? Try and save some pennies or just use the money to get the best possible for the club now?

Originally posted by craiggo Mr Hibberd used to be the man, but I guess he's moved on.

Mr Hebbert was the man but he's retired to take up training umpires. Andy Cornah (of WKSC) is now the man and yes they do cycle boats recently frequently, and the old ones tend to be in good nick. Given up on 420's though I believe - Fireflys only

Originally posted by Quagers The other option if looking for a flight of fireflys is to contact west kirby sailing club, their boats are very well maintained and they often refresh them.

Absolutely - they're just selling 6 to a club in the Midlands for their youth development programme.

Originally posted by Quagers Also unless its really cheap avoid the harken fireflys! always go rondar if you have the choice.

Dunno what you mean about Harken fireflys? There were some terrible plastic Fireflys made by Omege in the 70's and some 1/2 decent ones made by Porter more recently, but for team racing you only want Rondar's as they've got the wide rolled decks so don't fill up when you tack enthusiastically.

Originally posted by craiggo To be honest the best boats for team racing are probably Laser IIs, they take weight well, are easy to sail, and dont flood when you roll tack them

They're not that great for team racing, take your point about not flooding, but they take forever to tack and have both point and foot modes uphill which is not so great for team racing. Funny that even the "traditional" Laser 2 uni's such as Cambridge/Oxford have seen the light and have now got Fireflys - you'll be hard pushed to find any 1/2 keen team raving uni that doesn't have Fireflys.

Originally posted by tmoore the thing is we currently have about £500 and £1000 a term to work with

Is that working expenses or capital expenses - in my day we didn't have a great operating expenses budget but we could get the capital to buy new boats on a 6 year cycle or similar. Are there other budgets you can get funding out of - do you run any 'marine' courses

However you need to decide what it is you want to do with university sailing - frankly if that's your total budget I wouldn't bother trying to buy boats at all. Figure out what you want to offer to students that they can't get elsewhere and see if there is some way of delivering it. If 3/4 people want to race their own boats at BUSC champs then cover their entry fee. If 10 of you want to charter a yacht for a weekend to sail to france and back then do that, but you won't be able to do it all.

If you want to run some training courses then you need training suitable boats, and a 2000 is a much better bet - try sailboat devlieries who have recently picked up tonnes of boats from Menorca. Make sure you check up on RYA regs if you're charging for instruction - do you need to be an RTE, check insurance, certification etc etc

PS what university are we talking about?

Originally posted by craiggo To be honest your best bet is to contact Sevenoaks school, as they normally sell off entire fleets of boats regularly, at least they did in my day and try and pick up all six at a bargain price. Mr Hibberd used to be the man, but I guess he's moved on.

That's exactly what I was going to suggest. 

The other option if looking for a flight of fireflys is to contact west kirby sailing club, their boats are very well maintained and they often refresh them. Can only echo those above, if your serious about team racing buy 6 fireflys all at once, if not go for something else. Also unless its really cheap avoid the harken fireflys! always go rondar if you have the choice.