Australian Sailing: New amendment to Rule 46

Have people become aware of the new change by Australian Sailing to rule 46.
Instead of the old "3 race" rule, it is now a 'no race without membership' rule.

Am I the only one somewhat miffed by this change (I'm trying to be polite).
The AS platitudes about day membership must have been written by a member of a "royal" club. Most small and medium clubs don't have internet at the clubhouse or anyone to process these things on race day.

This seems crazy. Letting walk in have a bit of a race has long been the way you get people involved in sailing.

Yes this is more fertiliser than a medium size cattle ranch...........what flaming right does AS have to tell clubs that no-one can step on a club members boat without becoming a club member. Is this now George Orwell's 1984? Will they install cctv cameras and face recognition systems at every club from now on, to police this?

There was a facebook sailing site summary of Matt Allen's talk at RSYS the other day............I can't find it now..........obviously Matt is a lovely bloke but there was no talk of normal grass roots club land in it.........see link here on the event.......only RSYS members to attend thanks......

www.rsys.com.au/club-calendar/event/2318-matt-allen-talk

Obviously there are some very good eggs at AS - one reached out to assist to develop and grow a club I was involved with and attended a meeting, and had some good input. He mentioned Cronulla Sailing Club as going gangbusters (I have nothing to do with this club) but imho that's mainly due to the $s coming in from the Friday night bar swill session fed by the railway line from everywhere to there. Obviously this is a tad of an exaggeration as the club has a great racing program, and did a truly fantastic job with the video (including drones) of the first afternoon of the recent Hobart Race as they all went south with kites. If you haven't seen this suggest you do - it should be able to be found via google I hope...........

So for many clubs to politely advise AS to stick it right up and sideways with helical motion where the sun doesn't shine out of is more than understandable.

The correlation to golf and tennis clubs comes to mind - most "normal" golf and tennis clubs have member only time slots which are locked out, but welcome John/Jenny Citizen to play at other times subject to a reasonable hire fee. Otherwise they would go under and become a block of flats or motel or home for the bewildered.

As a final rant and rave what has AS done to promote anything this year associated with 2020 the 250th anniversary of Cook's landing? To celebrate the greatest sailor ever, in Sydney. I may have missed something so appreciate advice.

To finish off, and I am not a lawyer - rather a worker - but it is pretty clear to me that a legal challenge to this would succeed. Not sure who it would be to approach in these days of bureaucracies and overlapping State/Federal jurisdictions and authorities in the nanny state which is Australia now, but would guess the Ombudsman or Office of Fair Trading could be a start? They could refer to the correct authority?

Okay, I've mentioned on AS's Facebook page that I am willing to be a founder member of a group that will fight this. We could start by requesting a meeting with AS to understand their reasoning, or just exchanging emails. We would also then start up a linked FB page and website, a linked petition, and I'm happy to write a piece for Sail World etc.

I've run a class association, done submissions that have changed proposed federal and state laws (as in the lifejacket and windsurfer issue above), etc etc etc but we need a group of people to get involved.

Is anyone else interested in helping to kick it off?


PS- did anyone see the letter from AS to Noosa's sailing club? It said that if they dropped out of AS, members could no longer participate in sailing races (which is an absolute lie, since not every club or race requires AS membership) and referred to possible consequences to race officers and instructors. What the hell are they doing basically threatening people like volunteers?

PPS - one guy on the AS FB page mentioned that if the proposed rules applied today, he couldn't have taken out some Canadian firefighters on a twilight race as a way of thanking them for coming out to help us. If AS is going to stop people from showing their appreciation to overseas firefighters and people like that then we really can do without them.

Many thanks to Chris 249 and others for addressing this. Long time lurker, first post, but this is an extremely important issue. I grew up sailing MJs, MG14s and skiffs in Manly (the Sydney one), from 1969. We had 2 divisions of MJs, about 42 on a typical Saturday morning. Over a weekend there were about 10 different classes at MYC (all in separate races) including yachts. The whole show was run by volunteer parents, from handicaps to hamburgers and protest committees. Saturday arvo on Sydney Harbour must have been a nightmare for ferry skippers with all the different clubs and classes racing in big numbers. We novices learnt to sail by the seat of our pants (no wetsuits then), getting pushed out onto the water by parents ("See you later! Have fun!"), having bailer wars, capsizing and treating the rule book as if it was the Bible and we were racing for sheep stations. It was cutthroat racing. There was even interclub match racing. There was a lot of fun to be had outside of racing too, both on the water and off. Some kids ended up married, some went on to be famous sailors, and others (like me) faded into obscurity. It was wonderful. People might accuse me of wearing rose coloured glasses, but I swear I haven't exaggerated.

Today, on the same stretch of water on a weekend, I see tiny fleets mollycoddled by adults in RIBs, races cancelled if there is more than about 20 knots (OK, maybe blame the insurance companies for this piece of idiocy), and a very small number of elite sailors (single boats, two at most) being coached. I still sail, but racing looks like a joke now. It's sad.

If we want more of this, just make sure newcomers are turned away. The rule saying that for even one race you have to be a member of a club is insane, not just for the sport but for mental and physical health, crime prevention, social interaction, the list goes on.

This is not really an insurance issue.
The insurance offered is OK, but hardly worth making an issue of it for. It doesn't pay very much.
My guess is it more about AS executives meeting KPI's or inflating 'membership' numbers to get government support

OK, I've received some extra information on this which, indirectly comes from a club rep of AS, as follows-
"Sail Pass" is the new mechanism AS have rolled out to register drop in/day sailors.
It is free.
The drop in sailor/first timers register themselves on their smart phone, ie, once set up, not an admin burden for the club.
The club can determine how many times a sailor can use "Sail Pass" before requiring membership.
The club can determine if it wants to apply a fee for the day pass. (fee goes to the club, not AS)
The day sailors do not impact club membership numbers / affiliation level fees.
It ensures the club is covered if anything goes wrong, and who that person is, in the case of drop in backpackers for example, we often don't know much more than the first name and it's 'welcome aboard" no address/DOB/contact details etc.

If all this is correct, it does moderate things a bit; especially the bit about it being a self service mobile phone App (as long as someone at the club doesn't need to spend half an hour showing the drop in how to use it).

But I do wonder, when this issue has been running hot on various forums (including the AS FB page) why the extra detail is only now coming to light and through a closed one on one meeting at that (although I have permission to reproduce). You would think AS would be splashing this reply everywhere to take the sting out of the debate.

Seems like it's all web based registration, no mobile app. That could be a nightmare...

My initial reaction was much the same as all of you. This requirement to join the club would kill off much of the weekend / twilight sailing as boats would struggle to get crew.
"Would you like to come sailing on Friday evening? Yes? That's great we would love to have you join us, you just need to complete an online registration process or you can't sail"
" Ah ok sure i'll get that done."
On board on Friday getting ready to head out for the race. "Did you do that registration?"
"Sorry I forgot and didn't get a chance to do it"
"Ok that's a shame we will drop you off at the jetty on our way out"
Really? I doubt that's how it would go and you would just say to your new crew member don't worry about it this time. But then I guess if somebody wanted to be a pain in the a*** they could lodge a protest if you happened to do well in the race stating that you had illegal (unregistered) crew aboard.

The additional info does moderate things somewhat but there remain a number of critical unknowns such as will your club decide they will charge a fee for the casual membership? Sounds like this is going to be an option.

I am left wondering however how would they ever manage to enforce this? As long as a boat participating in a club race has a few crew that are members of the club (presumable the owner / skipper would have to be) I can't see clubs posting an employee on the end of the club marina / jetty or start vessel counting the number of crew on each and every boat heading out to the start and then cross matching that with the clubs membership role. Given that club membership would make a person eligible to sail on any boat in the club who's to know if the 5 crew on my boat are club members or not? It would only be if disgruntled members use this as a mechanism to protest a race result that it would come up.

This is all about big clubs charging for access to their grounds.
Or it sure seems that way
Take Royal Geelong.
You can only sail if you are member or have a sail pass
No other options.