29er GBR 074 Tynemouth |
Laurent Giles 'Jolly Boat' Exeter |
J24 (Sail No. 4239) Dartmouth |
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What percentage of Clubs in the country run ... |
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DiscoBall
Far too distracted from work Joined: 03 Jan 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 305 |
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Topic: What percentage of Clubs in the country run ... Posted: 18 Apr 22 at 7:08am |
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Is everyone a GRF-sized troll in Europe then?! Most sports are body-type sensitive at high level. Your 15 stoner won't make a jockey and GRF won't be playing pro basketball anytime soon. However at amateur level those aspects are far less important. The irony is being the perfect size is even less important in sailing as it is so complex and as most club sailors would usually benefit far more from just getting the basics right. Of course the UK system feeds the myth of finding the 'perfect' boat (obviously because the sailor can never be at fault ) which tallies pretty closely with how consumerism operates - just one more purchase and everything will be perfect... The Finn exists in Europe. As CT249 has pointed out repeatedly keelboat sailing is actually the biggest participation area in most countries so plenty more options there for varied crew sizes. Then there is the Snipe with fleets and a very high level of competition internationally. No doubt most Y&Y'ers will be sniggering about the idea of such a heavy, odd looking boat but I'd suspect there are far more Snipes being sailed at a far higher level than many of the Y&Y forum favourites (RS100? H2? Alto, Farr 3.7....). Edited by DiscoBall - 18 Apr 22 at 7:45am |
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Paramedic
Really should get out more Joined: 27 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 929 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 18 Apr 22 at 7:56am | |
a 15 stoner could be a jockey in a shire horse race...............;) One of the biggest step changes in the last 20/30 years is the development and perfection of raking rigs and carbon rigs, allowing previously heavyweight dominated classes to be sailed by lighter people. I don't think that this is entirely a good thing, you don't see too many 6 foot 2 men under 14 stone, and they're hardly obese either. When most UK classes were designed such a person would have made up a small percentage of the population. Funny how we spent 40 years learning how to depower only for population size to catch up! But I don't think the European version is the answer either, in fact I really do think we do it better for our audience. Literally anyone of any size can find a class that they can sail competitively either with someone else (Also of whatever size) or by themselves. I get that the singlehander market on the other side of the channel is pretty well served (Ok, Finn, Solo, Contender, Laser, Splash - something there for the vast majority of people and i'm bound to have missed one/two) doublehanders however have a poor selection of - frankly - largely poor classes to choose from if they want national level racing (Depending upon the FD and 505 distribution, but I perceive the 420 and 470 are very dominant - the Snipe just doesn't do anything for me). Now the racing might be amazing, but to me it's got to get a bit stale once you've done it for a few years. Maybe what we have is actually the best compromise? We have a handful of large, highly competitive fleets and also smaller ones for those who want to massage their egos. Most fleets sit in the middle but a number of classes are seeing a resurgence. Most importantly for me, and key looking 20 or so years ahead, you can say in the UK we have boats suitable for any water, that can be sailed by anyone. And a handicap system that works more often than it doesn't for more than half of the classes in the system. Beyond hoping natural selection carries on with the classes coming in I cant see a lot wrong with what we do.
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Grumpycat
Far too distracted from work Joined: 29 Sep 20 Online Status: Offline Posts: 497 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 18 Apr 22 at 9:29am | |
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Sam.Spoons
Really should get out more Joined: 07 Mar 12 Location: Manchester UK Online Status: Offline Posts: 3398 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 18 Apr 22 at 10:19am | |
50% of my sailing is just pottering or blasting up and down and all of the sailors at my holiday club are similar. Sailing is a holiday pastime for them, some don't race at all and I'm the only one who races elsewhere. That said we can get 25-30 boats out on a race day so we must be doing something right.
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Spice 346 "Flat Broke"
Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish" |
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423zero
Really should get out more Joined: 08 Jan 15 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 3406 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 18 Apr 22 at 6:24pm | |
I know a couple of sailors who do 'wild sailing' similar to wild swimming, bit more visual than swimming they did a raid on Vyrnwy, police helicopter turned up and gave them a load of abuse.
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Robert
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turnturtle
Really should get out more Joined: 05 Dec 14 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2538 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 19 Apr 22 at 12:33pm | |
ditto - some of the best sailing. We even carried it on at University - well I did until my N12 sank (for the first time) in the Tyne. It met a watery end in Abersoch the following summer. |
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423zero
Really should get out more Joined: 08 Jan 15 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 3406 |
Post Options Quote Reply Posted: 19 Apr 22 at 6:36pm | |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWjxUYcL6Z4
Mad wind, Bahia and a GP14, I am in the safety boat filming (not driving it ) You could barely stand , racing abandoned.
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Robert
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