"Free Boats" and Sailing Aging Out

[Alan H]

After 20 years of singlehanding on SF Bay and throwing wads of money into a series of boats, I downsized bigtime to a little full-keel daysailer. I call it my "old man looks good and goes slow" boat. I sometimes miss the big Bay but you know, I've had enough of spinnaker wraps and racing hard to finish mid-pack at best and entire weekends devoted to sailing and nothing else.

The cost of owning and operating a slip-stored boat here on SF Bay is out of line with the degree of fun it provides and the only way to justify it is if you are really wealthy and don't care, or sailing a boat like that is so personally important to you, that there kind of isn't an option. I note that most of the "new sailors" I know are chartering or riding on other peoples boats...let them pay the slip fees, insurance and bi-annual haulout costs.

It doesn't help when racing groups require preposterous quantities of "safety equipment" which cost a small fortune and when the cost of doing a single even climbs past fifty bucks.
In all honesty, I can't say that I've tried to recruit my young college-graduate friends into sailing like this, 'cause when two kids working good full-time jobs can only afford to live in a smallish two-bedroom apartment, it doesn't make a lot of sense to try to involve them in a sport that will cost them thousands of dollars every year.

There's a nice little 70's vintage 24-footer on CL right now for $500. Tempting....except that twenty seconds thought reminds me that it's really not.

 

[Raz'r]

I had 6 under-21s on the race to Monterey last weekend. Anyone else take some youth out?

 

[Santanasailor]

Go back to boats made of wood. When the neglect hits its final form, the boat goes away.

Point. Marina‘s won’t be filled with neglected, live forever, marine biology planters. Neglected wooden boats won’t last forever, marinas will be fairly empty, demand goes down, prices go down. Sails, an A Scow can pull water skiers with a cotton sail. Now, NO ONE wants a cotton sail, but decent Dacron is almost as fast as unobtainium sails in whatever wonder material of the day is specified. Its not the boats, yet it is the current boats.

We demand that everyone sails the very latest, very most expensive and then wonder why the sport is not as popular as it once was. Younger folks complain about the old boats not being fast enough. E-Scows turned a 100 years old this year…Want to race?

Try to find a good, inexpensive starter boat. I was looking at a replacement for our S2 that Sally killed. Found one I really liked, checked all the boxes without being overly fancy. Price, Bare Price 100K. Is wood cheaper, no, but a start to making some of the costs go down.

Besides, wood is beautiful.

 

[Monkey]

Everything being said here mirrors what I’m seeing. Our neighborhood sailing center is thriving, our PHRF fleet is struggling. There’s a lot to be said for going racing at $25 a night for a perfectly maintained boat with identical equipment to the rest of the fleet. It’s actually affordable to that generation we’re all complaining about.

 

[Somebody Else]

Someone said it best, I think it was Clean, “Fiberglass lasts too long.” And that’s what’s killing sailing.

Amen!

And as the electrical systems and water & fuel tanks, and standing rigging age out... and as the running rigging and sails and slip fees and haul-outs are line item annual expenses... There goes that "free" boat.

Seriously, the world needs more chainsaws.
Be discriminant and save the good ones, but most of the classic plastic needs to die an ignoble death.

 

[Sisu3360]

"Hands-On" stuff can't possibly hit the dopamine highs so consistently and effortlessly as playing games with the smartphone or computers (as I observe.. not a gaming guy).

Meh, I'm a millennial and a lifelong gamer. Gaming is what I do on winter nights when I'm not working in my shop, otherwise I'm doing something outside. Plenty of young(er) people crave authentic experiences, but gaming is fun too. I mostly play games that replicate experiences I'll never have - I'm very into flying F-14s in DCS right now.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Meh, I'm a millennial and a lifelong gamer. Gaming is what I do on winter nights when I'm not working in my shop, otherwise I'm doing something outside. Plenty of young(er) people crave authentic experiences, but gaming is fun too. I mostly play games that replicate experiences I'll never have - I'm very into flying F-14s in DCS right now.

FYI - One hour in a real airplane beats 10,000 hours of any sim.
Cough up for a ride!

 

[Sisu3360]

FYI - One hour in a real airplane beats 10,000 hours of any sim.
Cough up for a ride!

I'm a 600+ hour PPL, but unless I defect to Iran I don't think I'll get any PIC time in a Tomcat in the near future.

 

[solosailor]

Or a chance at a carrier landing !

 

[Alan H]

Oh, I'm not complaining about the younger folks, at all. Their reality is what it is. It's just a lot different, economically, from the reality I faced when i was 24.
I have a couple of other hobbies. For example, I play a lot of music. A really serious grand piano is $20,000 and up, but a used baby grand can be $5K or even less. A stradivarius or Guarnari string instrument is priceless, but you can get a good, solid, playable violin or viola for under a grand, and aside from resin, strings every couple of years and bow hair, there's no maintenance. There's a "HARD" hobby...(meaning you have to develop skills and invest time)...that will last your whole lifetime and there are no slip fees.

I bought my 1962 Buescher 400 tenor saxophone for $600, the wife got me a new case for $175 and I put a $30 mouthpiece on it, after trying mouthieces that cost 10x that. I have a couple of vintage clarinets from the "golden age" of clarinet and oboe manufacture, and all-up they're worth maybe $2K. I will play these instruments into my 80's. $2K is what I spent on Alpha's last haulout. I'll have to do another one, next winter.

My other hobby, throwing heavy stuff at the highland games, doesn't cost much, either, if I just compete locally. All my weights, and this is enough to outfit a whole club, cost less than $800. I use a $150 kilt. I can do this into my early 70's and then I can transition to being a judge and scorekeeper. Again, this is very nearly a lifetime hobby.

Compared to these hobbies, the bang per buck of racing a keelboat on the Bay doesn't make sense any more. It makes even less sense to recent college-graduate kids who can barely afford an apartment around here. Crew? Sure. Own? No way.

 

[Alan H]

But this is just the SF Bay Area. Economic issue are out of control, here. I expect it's not as bad everywhere in N. America.

 

[Gigantasy]

Are they buying boats or crewing on boats?
Everyone loves riding on big boats staying relatively dry. Riding on boats with low freeboard (smaller boats) is not as fun, especially in cold water areas.
I thought this thread was about owning boats?

Honestly, I think owning a sailboat is one of the VERY few things you can do cheaper in SF Bay elsewhere. There's decent inventory (of varying quality), decent dock space for not crazy money, you can use your boat all year round, and plenty of decent and not-particularly-snooty YC's (if you're into that sort of thing). I'm not sure there's anywhere else with that particular combination of factors.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Or a chance at a carrier landing !

I had one and pussed out
Frequently on the way to or from the Bahamas we went over Navy Mayport near Jacksonville Florida. They usually had an old straight deck carrier tied up there and I always asked to do a touch-and-go on it. DENIED GO AWAY was the usual response, but one year the guy manning the tower on New Year's sounded like he got the short straw and didn't really give a shit what happened.
"Sure go ahead, I don't care, try not to crash"
I was SO tempted.........but I was flying a Mooney that had almost no ground clearance, really stiff landing gear shocks, and had some issue where it would try and dart hard left or right on landing. It seemed like it would not be a good idea.

* I did get to do "pretend" carrier landings over at Jax NAS, they had the light system from a carrier for one of the runways. It actually works really well

 

[Calling Elvis]

Born 1980 (cusp millennial) and owner of a 1980’s 5ksb here, that we love very much. Nothing wrong with the sailing scene, I mean besides obscene moorage costs, but it’s Seattle I’m looking at. I see a shift from racing to cruising, but that’s not unique to sailing, happening in running and cycling as well.

The entry costs/requirements for any type of racing are the easiest thing to cut if cost, time and stress cutting is needed. I believe cruising rendezvous will continue to grow in popularity, maybe the return of true cruising class racing.

No shortage of anyone wanting to be on the water and people will keep finding a way.

 

[stevevindler]

Hey guys! New here, and so excited to see this post. I just bought an old boat in Puerto Vallarta, MX and I'm wondering where all the dirtbag sailors are. It seems everyone is sailing ultra sexy high dollar boats (boomers). I did meet some youtubers this year that were young and cool, but where are the normal people doing normal stuff?

I remember when I bought my first boat in San Diego, there was a crew of young people rowdying up the beer cans with boats deficient in fit and finish, but going fast. Does this culture exist any more or is it just boomers with Catalinas that refit their lifelines with rigid tube 4 in higher than it should be??? Sorry don't mean to be a hater, but I've been working my ass of for 2 seasons on this boat and about nobody even says Hi. Where have all the sailors gone? Killed by the culture of fear that pervades our society...? Anyway, that's my 2c and if anyone knows where I should go to find this crew, my boats about ready and I'm looking to get outta here!

 

[giegs]

I wonder if actively getting rid of the derelict fleet and forcing participation in clubs that maintain slips would help. Shit or get off the pot as it were. Even in the backwaters of the 4 corners area there's a ton of bobbing detritus that makes growing an active community more challenging just by it being tolerated.

 

[MattFranzek]

Dude, you can't make the argument that people should only sail new fast boats, and then bitch that a Vakaros is $1k. When a new Beneteau 36 is pushing half a milly, a new sail or a Vakaros costs next to nothing.

If your argument is that saving sailing can only be done on newer faster boats, the logical next step is to attract new rich boat owners. Those guys will keep buying the go-fast gear and the price will keep going up. It's flawed logic. Race a J/35, throw some white claws in the ice box, and let the millennials have some fun.

Where did I say any ring about newer faster boats? Kids, young adults, want interesting boats. They don’t want the back of their legs to get chewed up hiking on a metal track for hours on end. They don’t want road rash from shitty non-skid, Beneteau is the WORST offender. 40 year old J35s are a TON of fun, I rebuilt one because it was a blast, but it’s an uncomfortable IOR generation boat. You know what is even more fun? Equally priced and yearly cost Mumm 30s, 1D35s and Farr 40s because someone actually thought out a deck lay out.

Sorry but the target audience to grow sailing isn’t even considering a $500k 36ft Beneteau. They are looking for $10-20k Lightnings. They are looking for 10-20 year old $5k Lasers, a new Laser, sorry ILCA, is $9-12k. If you take inflation into account that’s still a 4x increase in price since 1980. The target audience to grow sailing does thinly a new Lightning jib, a Vakaros, gas/hotel/whatever to go to an away regatta is a lot of money.

FYI
When C&C 35s were new we were racing in numbers beyond anyone's dreams today. They and their contemporaries are STILL racing now at 45-50-or more years old and also cruising, daysailing, being liveaboards, and anything else boats can do.
Every time someone goes on about all the terrible old boats that everyone hates and how terrible the terrible old boats are, I remember they utterly kicked ass in getting boats on the line and people on boats.
Your super-carbon-fantastic-thing is not populating race courses and I severely doubt they'll be be doing anything 50 years from now.
BTW - if "the kids" don't like the boats the adults own and pay for, just like the 1970s or the 1570s for that matter, they can get a job and buy a super-light-whatever and pay all the bills when it breaks.

* also back then keels falling off was not a thing we worried about

Good luck racing a C&C 35 competitively without crew. There are less and less boats racing at all levels because people can’t find crew. Why? Because old boats suck to race on. Look around, what boats have good consistent crew every single week?

You are right, you had racing numbers, you also had the first generation of boats that were not wood and lasted more then 3 years with out having to replace beams. You also had a strong middle class with disposable income. Boats of all sizes that required 1/10th the work as the wooden boats that came before them, and an army of local sail makers/riggers/boat builders figuring the game out. Water front real estate was also CHEAP! If you didn’t like the club/marina options in town, walk down the street and start your own! There was land available. Good luck finding 10 sqft to put a new dock in with out every level of government wanting a say. You are right. Sailing was huge when C&C 35s were a thing, but not because C&C 35s existed. A buddy is a decent Twitch video game streamer. During COVID he would get 1500-3000 people watching him every day, peaked at 25,000 viewers once. Now he’s struggling to get 500 people to tune in. He said it was easy to get viewers when people were trapped inside. It was easy to get people to race C&C 35s when it was the only option. We have to adapt and evolve or we risk extinction.

 

[MattFranzek]

I wonder if actively getting rid of the derelict fleet and forcing participation in clubs that maintain slips would help. Shit or get off the pot as it were. Even in the backwaters of the 4 corners area there's a ton of bobbing detritus that makes growing an active community more challenging just by it being tolerated.

They are going to have to be cut up eventually. How many derelict boats that never leave the slips are taking up a spot from someone who would use it? How many people have their slip fees on auto pay and forgot about it years ago?

Born 1980 (cusp millennial) and owner of a 1980’s 5ksb here, that we love very much. Nothing wrong with the sailing scene, I mean besides obscene moorage costs, but it’s Seattle I’m looking at. I see a shift from racing to cruising, but that’s not unique to sailing, happening in running and cycling as well.

The entry costs/requirements for any type of racing are the easiest thing to cut if cost, time and stress cutting is needed. I believe cruising rendezvous will continue to grow in popularity, maybe the return of true cruising class racing.

No shortage of anyone wanting to be on the water and people will keep finding a way.

We are a few years apart, I’m a bit younger, and you are 100% spot on. How many derelict boats that have more bird poop on them than paint are sitting in Shilshoal? There was a J35 that looked like it hadn’t moved in 25 years last time I was there racing 105s.

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Where did I say any ring about newer faster boats? Kids, young adults, want interesting boats. They don’t want the back of their legs to get chewed up hiking on a metal track for hours on end. They don’t want road rash from shitty non-skid, Beneteau is the WORST offender. 40 year old J35s are a TON of fun, I rebuilt one because it was a blast, but it’s an uncomfortable IOR generation boat. You know what is even more fun? Equally priced and yearly cost Mumm 30s, 1D35s and Farr 40s because someone actually thought out a deck lay out.

Sorry but the target audience to grow sailing isn’t even considering a $500k 36ft Beneteau. They are looking for $10-20k Lightnings. They are looking for 10-20 year old $5k Lasers, a new Laser, sorry ILCA, is $9-12k. If you take inflation into account that’s still a 4x increase in price since 1980. The target audience to grow sailing does thinly a new Lightning jib, a Vakaros, gas/hotel/whatever to go to an away regatta is a lot of money.



Good luck racing a C&C 35 competitively without crew. There are less and less boats racing at all levels because people can’t find crew. Why? Because old boats suck to race on. Look around, what boats have good consistent crew every single week?

You are right, you had racing numbers, you also had the first generation of boats that were not wood and lasted more then 3 years with out having to replace beams. You also had a strong middle class with disposable income. Boats of all sizes that required 1/10th the work as the wooden boats that came before them, and an army of local sail makers/riggers/boat builders figuring the game out. Water front real estate was also CHEAP! If you didn’t like the club/marina options in town, walk down the street and start your own! There was land available. Good luck finding 10 sqft to put a new dock in with out every level of government wanting a say. You are right. Sailing was huge when C&C 35s were a thing, but not because C&C 35s existed. A buddy is a decent Twitch video game streamer. During COVID he would get 1500-3000 people watching him every day, peaked at 25,000 viewers once. Now he’s struggling to get 500 people to tune in. He said it was easy to get viewers when people were trapped inside. It was easy to get people to race C&C 35s when it was the only option. We have to adapt and evolve or we risk extinction.

You realize you are asking people to buy boats that they may not want, like, afford, or be interested in because the "kids" don't like the boats they do own, like, can afford, or are interested in?
The only people that have a voice in how or what I sail are the ones handing me checks.
I really think "the crew doesn't want to sail on old boats, they are all holding out for the latest carbon foiling thing or going home" is pretty far down on the list of problems. Time and money issues are vastly higher up on the list plus the huge failure of most juniour sailing programs to create life-long sailors. They age out and are never seen again. Speaking of old shitty boats, how long are kids going to be doing Optis and 420s? THAT is an area that needs new boats!

 

[MR.CLEAN]

people can’t find crew. Why? Because old boats suck to race on.

Solid research has shown this is completely false, and that in fact older boats are often better platforms for less experienced crew.

Read "Saving Sailing" before wasting more keystrokes on fantasy. No need to guess why racing is dying when the answers are already out there.

Hint: Some boats never have trouble finding crew.
Hint 2: People don't want to spend their recreational time listening to an old rich men yell and scream about racing rules and unfairness and gelcoat damage.
Hint 3: Minorities and other underserved groups - which make up the vast majority of population growth in American cities - believe sailing to be elitist, sexist, and racist, and nothing in american sailing has served to undermine that narrative. The old wrinkled wives of male club members still don't want young women roaming around the club unchaperoned and the trumpy trimmer still wants to be able to throw the term BN around without having to watch behind him for someone throwing an uppercut.