RIP Y&Ying forum?

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.

That does not mean the forum is dead , it just means it will never regain the numbers of hits it did a decade ago . It can still be useful to our sport if only as library of stored knowledge and for the few of us that are left to answer any questions in a balanced manner . Cycling forums still survive there is no reason why this one cannot too, if we want it too .

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I also appreciate the the articles on this web page as there is nothing like it in the uk on the web or even on fb. 

Andy Rice has even resorted writing about Yachts (OK it was Cape 31's which seem to be proper race boats).

SSailing today is not worthy of the name Yachts and Yachting thank goodness for this website.