Another club closure

I have seen no evidence that amateur run clubs will survive once the over sixties have gone. Sailing will be run and staffed by todays SI's and DI's, overseen either by local authorities or companies.

Adults only amateur club would substantially reduce paper work, no buildings or possessions, would remove insurance mitigation, rock up in a group and run races, safety is the responsibility of nearest boats to the incident. Would work really well, for that group but would do nothing for sailing.

 I think some consolidation of clubs is inevitable over the next ten years as the wave of the boomer sailors of the 60’s and 70’s work through.  I don’t think that there is any one model that will lead the way.  I suspect that the clubs that support and are supported by a local community are the most likely to survive … I work along the south coast and can point to several clubs that appear to be doing ok, judging by their Wednesday night turnouts, and are firmly embedded in “sailing towns” … Warsash, Lymington and Salcombe stand out.  Rather reassuringly there were four new younger pairings sailing in our Wednesday evening race tonight, so maybe fears of the demise of club racing are premature

Statistics point to imminent demise of amateur sports. Substantial majority of professional staff and skilled trades people are over fifty, in ten years this country is going to be in dire straits, we will be reduced to economic level of semi industrial countries, its that bad.

Originally posted by JimC In many ways it would be going back to competitive sailing as it existed before WW2, even WW1 when gentleman (and some ladies) had their expensive clubs in Cowes or on the Thames, and the only working people who sailed were fishermen and the like who crewed on millionaires yachts in the summer.

Edited by CT249 - 12 May 22 at 4:54am