scott.projectsomewhere

Why don’t more people sail on a beautiful sunny, warm and moderately windy Saturday in Sydney?

Euan and I did a few hours of 49er training with Emmett & Phil from Woollahra on said Saturday. Despite launching from a club with over 20 rigged 49ers in the boat-park, we were the only ones on the water.

What’s going on with dinghy sailing in this place?

Admittedly, the club normally races on Sundays, and they did have between 12-15 boats on the water that day. But really, in a city of 5 million people, the proportion of people participating in just abysmal.

Then where are the junior fleets? I haven’t seen a fleet of MJs or Sabots for a long time. Woollahra has none. Vaucluse 12 footers, practically none. In the richest part of the richest city in the country with the most incredible weather there is no sign of a budding fleet of juniors or teenagers, or even adults sailing in dinghys.

All that doesn’t bode well for the future. Who is going to come through the ranks to replace the old guard? And where are they going to come from?

Who is doing anything about it?

Woollahra does have a sailing school and private school sailing. But based on the numbers that progress to participation - they’re not successful.

Balmoral has a similar operation, but those kids are stuck in clunking wooden mirrors, condemned to an era that has long passed - hardly appealing to the instant gratification generation.

What to do?

How do we get kids and adults for that matter, interested enough to give sailing a try, and keep them interested enough to keep turning up?

Where are the opportunities for adult beginners (that aren’t over-commercialised)?

Where are the interesting opportunities for girls - apart from being the ‘bit of fluff’ on the rail of a keelboat?

Back in the day, Dad’s sailing programs in a remote coastal backwater resulted in proportionally well over 10-times the racing boats than Sydney. The level of devotion from the families back then was just exceptional. Now I may just be romanticising the past here, but not too much.

Who’s going to devote their time and effort to make it happen again?

What can we do to stop this sport from losing the critical mass it needs to keep churning over?

Ideas?

Another overly philosophical post for Monday eh?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 27th, 2006 at 12:47 pm and is filed under Random, Sailing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.