Values not Value
In a week when the computer game, that’s now called the America’s Cup sailed its first meaningless (yes.. the points won, count for nothing) races, an American Facebook page with 36000 followers asked its readers …
“What would you do to boost participation in sailboat racing? How do we get it back to where it was in the 80s and 90s?”
I’m not sure it’s a great question. I for one, don’t want to go back to the 1990’s. (I wouldn’t mind going for a world cruise in the 1970’s tho’!) However the gist of what they are asking is clear. What has our sport got wrong, and are there attitudes from the past that could enhance the present situation, spiritually not financially?
Here is a fairly random selection of the replies…
Get rid of electronics. Teach sailing, not reading displays
Get rid of the aggressive competitors and those who win by buying a new rig every year and make it fun at grass roots. Sports start at that level.
The peak of world sailing is the America’s Cup and it’s so boring, The races take ten to fifteen minutes. Three tacks up wind and a couple of jibes down wind and who wins the start wins the race . The Admiral’s cup last year was so exciting. So get the One Ton Clipper cup back and someone please start a opposition to America’s Cup in boats that have sail changes and are doing tactics.
Go back to normal sailing boats, Finn, FD, Star, that show sailing capacity and not how much money you have. ·
In Australia drop the sail pass for new sailors.
Encourage participation of older boats. Most of the media highlights the hot, new carbon fiber boats. We have plenty of old IOR boats that could fill every regatta.
One design racing, using older readily available hull types with limitations on sail canvas to keep cost down. The Rhodes 19 with a Dacron sail limitation, is a good example. As would be a 470 or 210. I see the problem is we have plenty of youth programs but there’s nowhere for them to go once they age out.
A lot of people followed Whitbread around the world race on TV and got inspired. The boats then, looked fairly similar to what people could buy (but in much smaller scale) and identify with. Todays raceboats are from another planet.....too expensive and strange with foils, canting keels and other strange things......most people got lost there. I, and many other, lost interest watching because it was now a completely different hobby. Nothing like our own sailing.
A ClubSwan 28 starts at 200,000 Euros. That does not include racing sails, a trailer, etc. etc. Racing new boats is way out of the average guy’s means. We’ve had our Olson 30 since ‘87. I like the guys who are saying race something like Thistles. At least they are affordable and don’t require a small army to sail.
Cost is an issue. Focus on the passion of sailing and spread it to the kids. Sailing one designs and smaller boats helps develop strategic sailing, Screw the foiling sleds. America’s Cup should go back to keelboats -
Get the Americas Cup back into 12 meters. Right now I wouldn’t take 10 minutes out of my life to watch these boats
And it goes on and on….. Now I know that an on line Vox Pop is hardly scientific evidence, but in my day to day interactions with a wide cross section of the sailing world, the sentiments expressed above are regularly repeated… often more (and sometimes less) eloquently.
A week after Australia announced its first serious tilt at the America’s Cup in 25 years, it seems a little curmudgeonly to be getting stuck in. But let’s not let the romance of a 43 year old victory divert us from the facts. The racing is boring to watch. It’s unrelatable for the weekend sailor. It’s commercially motivated. And perhaps most dangerously it sucks attention and funding away from the thing that matters most… getting young people out on the water in ways that will forever enrich their lives.
Let’s do our own Vox Pop…
What do you think would you do to boost participation in sailboat racing? Comment below…