ROADKILL666
Super Anarchist
I never left.
Where is Everybody?
- Thread starter Firebar
- Start date
I get 12... If you do the 4 x1 day per weekend Spring series dates, and the 7 x1 day per weekend winter champs then they're gone... so no more sailing for you... Or more to the point you've paid out over £3k to do them on top of the sailing you want to do in the actual summer.....
As Snowden says, there is plenty of demand for yacht racing, but I think that perhaps the many weekend, race every Sunday, "series" type of event has had its day.
dogwatch
Super Anarchist
Could be, although entries for the 2 weekend Spring Championship are also poor.
Royal Southern summer monthly regattas seem to be doing OK, which supports your hypothesis.
Few these days do enough races in dinghy long-format series to qualify but they still turn up from time to time and the series carry on. I guess cost is a factor there, it costs nothing to enter a club race and it is convenient if your boat is at the club. Some dinghy clubs focus racing on, say, a weekend a month in summer.
Royal Southern summer monthly regattas seem to be doing OK, which supports your hypothesis.
Few these days do enough races in dinghy long-format series to qualify but they still turn up from time to time and the series carry on. I guess cost is a factor there, it costs nothing to enter a club race and it is convenient if your boat is at the club. Some dinghy clubs focus racing on, say, a weekend a month in summer.
LB 15
Cunt
Not a stretch at all for the loony left. 'Bright ideas' wants to blame everything on the right, yet refuses to even mention the recent pandemic that shut the world down for two years. Possibly because any mention of the Chinese flue reflects badly on the utopian state that he/she/them/it would like all countries to become.
floater
Super Duper Anarchist
wasn't the flu good for sailing? was certainly good for my sailing..
Grande Mastere Dreade
Snag's spellchecker
Grande Mastere Dreade
Snag's spellchecker
why do you have tiki torches and flood lights lit? floridians..
ROADKILL666
Super Anarchist
So we can watch the dogs chase each other torches for small flying aircraft A.K.A. Mosquitoes.
4 weeks away for the spring champs. A whole ton of boats that I know are going haven’t entered yet.
I'd say there are 4 factors at play here: cost, wealth, time, competition
Cost: The 70s saw a glut of outdoor recreation products. Boats, bikes, airplanes, you name it. In an era before huge baked-in liability costs and with economies of scale, yesterday's boats were cheaper new than today's will ever be. Thanks to the durability of fiberglass most of these same boats are available cheap today, but you'll need DIY skills and time to work. Less practical for dinghies that get soft over time (though you may want to see a doctor for treatment options). Technological advancement has also made consumables like sails and line more expensive, though somewhat offset by increased service life.
Wealth: I'll avoid pissing on any third rails here, but there are several stressors on middle class wealth today that didn't exist in previous generations.
Time: Two-income households are more common than they have ever been. Again, I won't dwell on the whether this is overall a good or bad thing, but it's hard to spend time on hobbies when both adults need to spend their off-work hours keeping up with household tasks.
Competition: Not sailing competition, competition for time and money. There's flat-out more stuff to do today and more things to spend money on. Sailing demands time investment, especially to get good at racing. Even the simple act of going out on the water requires dramatically more setup and takedown than, for comparison, powerboating. And if only powerboating had the same skill threshold as sailing, the lake would be a lot safer on the 4th of July...
Cost: The 70s saw a glut of outdoor recreation products. Boats, bikes, airplanes, you name it. In an era before huge baked-in liability costs and with economies of scale, yesterday's boats were cheaper new than today's will ever be. Thanks to the durability of fiberglass most of these same boats are available cheap today, but you'll need DIY skills and time to work. Less practical for dinghies that get soft over time (though you may want to see a doctor for treatment options). Technological advancement has also made consumables like sails and line more expensive, though somewhat offset by increased service life.
Wealth: I'll avoid pissing on any third rails here, but there are several stressors on middle class wealth today that didn't exist in previous generations.
Time: Two-income households are more common than they have ever been. Again, I won't dwell on the whether this is overall a good or bad thing, but it's hard to spend time on hobbies when both adults need to spend their off-work hours keeping up with household tasks.
Competition: Not sailing competition, competition for time and money. There's flat-out more stuff to do today and more things to spend money on. Sailing demands time investment, especially to get good at racing. Even the simple act of going out on the water requires dramatically more setup and takedown than, for comparison, powerboating. And if only powerboating had the same skill threshold as sailing, the lake would be a lot safer on the 4th of July...
TUBBY
Anarchist
One sunny day racing gives some people enough pictures to fill their social media for a month, so no need to go again until you run out!
Me I don't take a camera & I don't have a whatever page so I just have to keep turning up! (Besides at my age the memories don't last long!)
Me I don't take a camera & I don't have a whatever page so I just have to keep turning up! (Besides at my age the memories don't last long!)
Mambo Kings
Super Anarchist
None of your explanations make any sense to me.
My friends and I used to drive down from London to crew on the Hamble winter series for three simple reasons.
The sailing was fun
The skipper served great sandwiches and bought the first round at the Royal Southern
But most of all.......there were plentiful number of young single women, racing or at the pub afterwards. They were there because there were a plentiful number of young single men who were reasonably athletic and not stupid.
This predated Tinder, match and social media. If you wanted to meet singles, your own age, with roughly similar interests you had to get up and go out.....and the Hamble winter series was way better than the winter singles scene in London. I went to at least two "Hamble Winter Series" weddings that I can think of. One of them is still going strong decades later.
I dont know who stopped showing up first. The young men or the young women.....but a glance at the dock is a bit depressing.
My friends and I used to drive down from London to crew on the Hamble winter series for three simple reasons.
The sailing was fun
The skipper served great sandwiches and bought the first round at the Royal Southern
But most of all.......there were plentiful number of young single women, racing or at the pub afterwards. They were there because there were a plentiful number of young single men who were reasonably athletic and not stupid.
This predated Tinder, match and social media. If you wanted to meet singles, your own age, with roughly similar interests you had to get up and go out.....and the Hamble winter series was way better than the winter singles scene in London. I went to at least two "Hamble Winter Series" weddings that I can think of. One of them is still going strong decades later.
I dont know who stopped showing up first. The young men or the young women.....but a glance at the dock is a bit depressing.
Veeger
Super Anarchist
Yeah, I'm noticing. Went to my 50th Hi Skrool reunion last year--there were only old people there--and not many of 'em at that!
Yeah, but all of that requires the owner to show up with his toy....
Well I'm not Solent based so we've never had the numbers you had.
But even 'up North the amount of racing has dropped a lot. Twenty years ago we used to get big fleets Sunday and Thursday evenings.
Now not only is the participation massively down, but so is the level, it used to be fiercely competitive. Now not so much.
Speaking for myself, most local jobs pay shit money, so I work abroad, 2 weeks on 2 off, 4 on 4 off etc. Which means race series are for me, completely pointless as I'm away too much. So I'm more interested in regattas or one of race events / weekends.
And most people I know have low disposable income with massive work time commitments, young people either can't afford it, or they can afford it but they don't have the time.
But even 'up North the amount of racing has dropped a lot. Twenty years ago we used to get big fleets Sunday and Thursday evenings.
Now not only is the participation massively down, but so is the level, it used to be fiercely competitive. Now not so much.
Speaking for myself, most local jobs pay shit money, so I work abroad, 2 weeks on 2 off, 4 on 4 off etc. Which means race series are for me, completely pointless as I'm away too much. So I'm more interested in regattas or one of race events / weekends.
And most people I know have low disposable income with massive work time commitments, young people either can't afford it, or they can afford it but they don't have the time.
dogwatch
Super Anarchist
Young people undoubtedly have it tougher than their predecessors but they were not, in general, the owners when the Hamble/Warsash Winter and Spring series were in their pomp. That much has not changed.
It would be interesting to check back in a non-Fastnet year to see if this is in any way driven by boats deciding to have an "offshore" year.
Agree with those saying that there is no shortage of people with the cash to run a racing campaign. Perhaps those people are more concentrated in London that they used to be, i.e. your 1980s GP / solicitor / accountant based on the South Coast that owned a Sigma 33 doesn't own a J/109 in 2023? Or sailing has lost the social cachet that drew in the upwardly mobile Thatcher generations that watched Howard's Way and wanted to prove they had arrived?
Agree with those saying that there is no shortage of people with the cash to run a racing campaign. Perhaps those people are more concentrated in London that they used to be, i.e. your 1980s GP / solicitor / accountant based on the South Coast that owned a Sigma 33 doesn't own a J/109 in 2023? Or sailing has lost the social cachet that drew in the upwardly mobile Thatcher generations that watched Howard's Way and wanted to prove they had arrived?
dogwatch
Super Anarchist
Or is the 1950s atmosphere pervading the Royal Southern less congenial to the present generation of owner or potential owner? Maybe it has changed, I haven't stepped in there in a decade.
Southern / RORC have changed for sure, Thames / Royal London still very old school. Squadron in a different league.
But generally if you wander around yachting events they sound a lot less plummy than they used to.
