Where is Everybody?

[LB 15]

Look around British Society, mate. What we read in the Colonies is your working class has not faired well under the Torys. Ever since the Iron Lady came to town and declared war on Unionists, its been less and less for the working class. Same here in the Colonies.

Think of Yachting (no longer referred to as pedastrian "sailing") in the Gilded Age. Only the Sopwiths, Liptons and Vanderbilts could afford a Yacht and crew to race. Us commoners were stuck shore side, watching the rich fluant their shit. 100 years later, we've emerged from the Wars with booming middle class and explosion of plastic sailboats for the masses. And then Reagan/Thatcher and the 80s reversed all that. Now, 40 years later were back to the Gilded Age of Billionaires and their yachts, with the commoners back on shore wonder WTF happened. Like you and this post. Simple economics sir. Good day.

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Obviously the solution is for leftwing governments to buy the working class their own yachts. It is sooooo unfair....

 

[kent_island_sailor]

Might as well race dinghies.

I have bitched forever about big boat racing being short W/L like a dinghy race. Not only do some people not like it, but some more people decide they can do that in a dinghy and save a lot of money.

 

[Somebody Else]

New requirement for the NORs and SIs:

• At least one hot meal must be served from the yacht's galley per day of racing.

 

[Secret Experiment]

Look around British Society, mate. What we read in the Colonies is your working class has not faired well under the Torys. Ever since the Iron Lady came to town and declared war on Unionists, its been less and less for the working class. Same here in the Colonies.

Well, in this particular colony you're fighting gridlock on the roads on the weekend as "doing it tough" Aussies pilot their $140K landcruisers, Teslas, 25 foot caravans, Harleys/Ducatis, jet skis, shark cats, carbon fibre 6 kg bikes etc etc etc to their holiday places on the coast. OK, that's not the case for every citizen, but it is this economic demographic which once drove racing, keelboat and dinghy.
The decline of racing (affordable) boats is due to a mixture of sociological and lifestyle stuff, not an economic issue.

 

[BrightAyes]

Well, in this particular colony you're fighting gridlock on the roads on the weekend as "doing it tough" Aussies pilot their $140K landcruisers, Teslas, 25 foot caravans, Harleys/Ducatis, jet skis, shark cats, carbon fibre 6 kg bikes etc etc etc to their holiday places on the coast. OK, that's not the case for every citizen, but it is this economic demographic which once drove racing, keelboat and dinghy.
The decline of racing (affordable) boats is due to a mixture of sociological and lifestyle stuff, not an economic issue.

I like my left-lean socialist explainy mo betta. So there.

 

[Secret Experiment]

I like my left-lean socialist explainy mo betta. So there.

no worries at all. it may well look very different in a couple of years - economic Winter is coming.

 

[dogwatch]

The decline of racing (affordable) boats is due to a mixture of sociological and lifestyle stuff, not an economic issue.

If we are into our favourite unverifiable theory, mine is changes in parenting expectations. Little Johnny used to be expected to trail around after whatever his parents were doing. Now on a Sunday, he has saxophone at 10:00, tennis at 13:00 and computer club at 16:00. Of course he has to be driven to and from all of them. Consequently, Dad is not free to go sailing.

 

[dogwatch]

New requirement for the NORs and SIs:

• At least one hot meal must be served from the yacht's galley per day of racing.

A brilliant plan with just a few flaws. One is that at least 50% of the boats doing the Hamble and Warsash series do not have galleys. They are sportsboats. The second is that clubs make money selling food and drink to competitors. The third is that it is bloody winter and the idea is to get out there, have a couple of races and get back to get warm, not to hang around freezing while eating on the boat.

 

[Flaming]

I think there is something of a shift in how racing is organised going on. Where in the past the clubs put on the racing and just expected people to enter, now the owners are talking to each other and deciding what they will enter as a group. Sometimes informally, sometimes more formally, see the P40s for example. And then the Cape 31s have sucked in just about any semi serious inshore team with enough cash which means no more class 1.
That leaves the offshore teams and the D/H mob. Neither of which is all that interested in an early season thrash around the cans....

As an aside I'm having conversations about a possible "P35" class on similar lines to the P40, rating band centred around the 109s and the 99s, with things like the A35s, JPK1010s etc fitting in as well. If anyone is interested drop me a PM.

 

[dogwatch]

Interesting observation. Actually White Group classes always acted in a more or less coordinated way. For instance once upon a time, when the Solent had a huge J24 fleet, they migrated Winter (really Autumn) Hamble, Spring Lymington (or was it the other way around?). You are suggesting that now, Black Group classes are doing the same.

 

[sunseeker]

If we are into our favourite unverifiable theory, mine is changes in parenting expectations. Little Johnny used to be expected to trail around after whatever his parents were doing. Now on a Sunday, he has saxophone at 10:00, tennis at 13:00 and computer club at 16:00. Of course he has to be driven to and from all of them. Consequently, Dad is not free to go sailing.

Worse is that dad is driving kids to an Opti event, then riding around in a RIB, when in the past they would be sailing together.

Making kids stay within only their own age group is a problem, at least in the US, when they stop sailing in age limited events, because they have to find somewhere else to sail, whereas if they sailed in classes that support multi generational sailing it’s just a natural progression. The traditional classes like scows, thistles and lightnings remain strong (relatively) and competitive, all without pro hookers too.

 

[Flaming]

Interesting observation. Actually White Group classes always acted in a more or less coordinated way. For instance once upon a time, when the Solent had a huge J24 fleet, they migrated Winter (really Autumn) Hamble, Spring Lymington (or was it the other way around?). You are suggesting that now, Black Group classes are doing the same.

A lot of people are starting to realise that there are too many events in the solent. And that it's far better to do fewer weekends per season of high quality racing than race every weekend against 4 boats.
The boats are out there, it's just co-ordinating them to sail the same weekends. A couple of years ago I counted something like 70 boats in a 0.990 - 1.030 band had sailed at least 1 IRC regatta during the season, yet it was unusual to see more than 8 on the line on any given weekend.

Add in the rise of dry sailing, and my motivation to pay £300+ to launch the boat for a Sunday in March is limited. In March my time and money are better spent in gaining brownie points for better events later in the season....

 

[dogwatch]

When I used to dry-sail out of HYS and later Warsash Marine, you got a package of launches e.g. I think HYS was 20 per season. That was enough for the most dedicated. Has this changed?

 

[Snowden]

When I used to dry-sail out of HYS and later Warsash Marine, you got a package of launches e.g. I think HYS was 20 per season. That was enough for the most dedicated. Has this changed?

At Hamble Point MDL will sell you any number of lifts you like as part of the dry-sail package. I have generally gone for 15-20 depending on whether I'm carrying any over from the previous year. The "breakeven" with keeping the boat in the water was about 13 when I first signed up in 2018 (excluding antifoul / diver costs).

 

[FlyingCircus2]

Obviously the solution is for leftwing governments to buy the working class their own yachts. It is sooooo unfair....

Seriously though, access to the water needs more protection. At least in New England.

The incentive to flip everything to condos is too great.

 

[pqbon]

Seriously though, access to the water needs more protection. At least in New England.

The incentive to flip everything to condos is too great.

I think the USA has done a specifically poor job keeping access to water. It continues to do a poor job as even now access to the water and boat storage is going away.

The storage costs in the UK and the availability of storage is so much greater.

 

[dogwatch]

Seriously though, access to the water needs more protection. At least in New England.

The incentive to flip everything to condos is too great.

Same in Old England. Hamble/Warsash is heading towards 1000s of "yachtman's residences" but no working space for yachts. Alas, we read in planning applications, marine businesses are simply not viable. With tears in our eyes, we must conclude they have to be converted to up-market housing. Planning authorities, until recently with hard-to-reach targets for house building on brownfield sites, had every incentive to agree.

 

[EYESAILOR]

If we are into our favourite unverifiable theory, mine is changes in parenting expectations. Little Johnny used to be expected to trail around after whatever his parents were doing. Now on a Sunday, he has saxophone at 10:00, tennis at 13:00 and computer club at 16:00. Of course he has to be driven to and from all of them. Consequently, Dad is not free to go sailing.

Which makes Hannah Mills even more of an inspiration!

My money is on liitle Sienna turning out a more well rounded, self sufficient young person than afore mentioned little Johnny.

 

[pqbon]

Same in Old England. Hamble/Warsash is heading towards 1000s of "yachtman's residences" but no working space for yachts.

It still seems less or a problem in the UK compared to the US.
Not a big boat example but in Northampton the sailing club there was successfully able to fight a loss of leased land.

I don't think the outcome would have been the same in the US.

 

[Mambo Kings]

Ever since the Iron Lady came to town .....

We've emerged from the Wars with booming middle class and explosion of plastic sailboats for the masses. And then Reagan/Thatcher and the 80s reversed all that.

Maggie was blamed for a lot of unlikely consequences when she reversed the decline of the UK....but attributing the recent decline in participation of the Warsash Spring Series to Maggie Thatcher, 33 years after she left office and 10 years after she died is probably a bridge too far?