Weekend club racing (fixed keel yachts or trailer sailers) participation numbers continuing to fall

Great topic. It would be nice to know exactly why each boat stopped racing so the results could be analysed, but in my experience, clubs don't chase up an owner when they don't turn up next season.

The big regatta's such as Hammo and Geelong still get excellent numbers. So have all the racers got to retirement age and now spend their time floating up and down the coast?

I am lucky that I have a stable crew roster that can be small in number. For the Sydney 38's etc, they generally need 7 plus crew just to get out there and are constantly scratching for bodies. Even though I can easily race 2 handed, I have had to spend a considerable amount of boat dollars to get mine competitive enough to not finish a long way last in every race. So perhaps there comes an identifiable time when the cost involved to do Cat 4 drops people to Cat 7, then to twilights and finally out the door.

Our club has a thriving twilight series 2 nights a week (80+ on a monday). The mono's have 3 weekend series that only race once a month. The offshore and inshore spinnaker races struggled last season to get 10 boats each. The inshore non spinnaker gets 20. So perhaps its a combination of factors, lack of crew, lack of time, lack of competition in the fleet. Our multi's race every weekend, inshore with spinnakers and while their numbers fluctuate (usually because of weather), they are consistent each year.

We have a new co-ordinator for the sunday races this season. He has spent a considerable amount of time chasing up boats to register and get out there. Crew draw prizes after racing, discount membership with YA thrown in and invitations to neighbouring clubs seem to have had a positive effect.

I crew on a boat based in Sydney , to crew I am told I need a club membership which is ,as far as I am concerned a rediculouse amount of money . I said do you only need a ya affiliated club membership ,no ours or a couple of other expensive clubs . I don't crew often to avoid the fees, I'm not rich , i choose to spend that money towards my own boat maintenance. I'm happy to pay some thing , but not what they are asking . If they charge like that for the owners I'm surprised any one is racing .

As mentioned above I think the cost of insurance has killed it. You use to be able to rock up and do the occasional race, flick the club a few dollars, and everyone was happy. Now you need liability insurance, and more expensive boat insurance just for the odd race. If this issue could be addressed I think a lot more casuals would jump in. Personally I have moved on and competition is no longer everything. My longest lasting passions have been non competitive. You don't have to race to enjoy comradery and blast or cruise around on watercraft.

It would be interesting to compare numbers for dinghy fleets. Maybe a lot of people are staying in dinghys.
Theres not much incentive to go from a boat like a 49er for example to yachts unless you can afford a sports boat or something fun and competative. How will you get someone who is skippering there own mini rocket ship to go be a pleb on an average keelboat?
I know people with young families have a lot less spare time and basically no spare money, with pay packets covering food and bills not much more.
Then there is the time factor. Maybe shorter races so its only 3-4 hours out of your weekend not 3/4 of saturday.

Yes good responses all. Golf and tennis participation has been smashed also. Trailer sailers stopped selling in the early 90s. Boat cost is an issue also - the Cygnet 20 is about $70k with trailer - nothing against it just providing a reference. The rule of thumb for buying a car is 35% of your annual salary - so this $70k is way over that % unless you are an overpaid CEO. How good are CEO pays!
Yes Balmain and Drummoyne are going well - the twilights at the latter can be demolition derbies. The combined club West Harbour Series are good initiatives.
Most club's these days are above ground cemeteries.
Good to see this outthere initiative but it seems a tad bureaucratic, overwhelming..... www.sailing.org.au/news/northern-territory-regional-managers-update/ Vic got a sports award www.discoversailing.org.au/outthere/
Good media guide www.sailingresources.org.au/clubresources/media-guide/ but not sure why there is the need to have 3 different websites - shouldn't it all go through sailing.org.au? Maybe these are being consolidated now......
Sailing is not in the top 22 sports now - see www.ausleisure.com.au/news/massive-decline-in-australians-participation-in-rugby-squash-and-tenpin-bow/
The fitness industry has benefitted www.ausleisure.com.au/news/fitness-industry-benefits-from-decline-in-sport-participation/
See attempts to reduce the decline www.ausleisure.com.au/news/landmark-study-finds-sport-struggling-to-keep-youth-engaged/ www.ausleisure.com.au/news/sports-commission-urges-teenagers-to-stick-with-sport/
There were 98 boats at the Laser NSW states 9-10/11 Botany Bay - so people doing individual fitness work and crew availability issues is pushing skippers into single handers.
Yes is you went from a 49er to a Folkboat - nothing against Folkboats - it would be like watching paint dry.......but there are Young Rockets out there which would satisfy the sailing fix.
Insurance cost is certainly an issue. The big end of town clubs have their junior development squads which feed through but the attrition of those squads is probably high.
Agree Ray there are plenty of serviceable Solings and J24s etc out there for sale at a few grand which are top sailing classes - can't believe why they don't get snapped up and used.
Yes the disconnect between Joe or Joanne Average on the street to what they see on TV and the local sailing club is way different now to the 60's-70's when the ships were made of wood and he men of steel. Add to that the ridiculous legal stoushes surrounding the America's Cup and it is no wonder the average person views yachting / sailing as for the wealthy only...........a new Cherub or 29er is a serious amount of loot - for 12 footers. The ply Cherub fleets were extensive. Carbon and kevlar materials have driven costs through the roof.

There have been two major studies about the public perception of sailing. It's not seen as boring - it's seen as a very attractive but also expensive, elitist (which is not just yacht club snobbery but also snobbery about slower classes) and complicated. Bizarelly, the sport has ignored those studies and the example of what happened to beach cats and windsurfers when they went elitist, and
now believes that promoting skiffs, canters and foilers is the way forward. Even more bizarrely, the powers that be have not noticed that they've been doing that now for a couple of decades and the sport is still shrinking. They cling with deadening fingers to the ancient mantra "if you build it fast they will come" and have closed thier eyes to the fact that it's not working.

How did you get into yacht sailing in the '70s? You bought a cheap 22-24 foot cruiser/racer or an 18 ft trailer sailor, put on cruiser/racing sails, and sailed with your friends and family in a mob of similar boats. How do you get into sailing in 2019? To be with a mob of similar boats, you buy a 42 footer, put a set of 3DL sails on it, and find 13 good friends who can handle a boat like that. Oh, and if you listen to the powers that be, they will tell you that your $300k boat is irrelevant to the grand prix scene and that unless you spend much more, you are not in the game.

Back in the '70s, most of the boats in the CYCA offshore fleet were half ton size or less. The inshore fleets were of even smaller boats, so people could get into the mainstream without spending a fortune and finding 12 crew. I held on to my 28 footer for eons because I love smaller boats. Now I have a 36 footer I couldn't be bothered racing it because I need 9 good crew and I don't want to add to the arms race at my club. And as a 36 footer, I have no place in the "grand prix" scene - which includes many of the same people I can race any day in a Laser for a lot less hassle.

It's interesting that despite all the huge hype about skiffs and foiling, skiff numbers are not growing and foilers are not really growing strongly at all, outside of boards. And the biggest selling sailing class in the world is the Windsurfer LT - a modern revamp of the original Windsurfer with the emphasis on simple, casual fun and OD racing. IT's outselling Laser and the Optimist combined.

I don't race but I'm in my early 30's and it's bloody hard to get people to come out on the yacht let alone get one themselves. I've had a few yachts and i'm pretty close to giving it up soon as it's just becoming too expensive with limited DIY options to maintain.

I've also noticed a negative change in attitudes towards smaller/older boats from marinas and slipways over the last few years in that they are now so used to just getting 50 footers and limitless credit cards thrown at them they treat anyone who dares ask anything related to cost with disdain, the response is usually you own a boat what do you care about money.

Looking at the mooring wait lists in Middle Harbour seems to be a telling sign less than 10 years ago almost everywhere had wait list of several months if not years for some spots now there is only 6 applicants in the whole of Middle Harbour.

If there was a way to actually maintain these smaller older yachts for reasonable money i'm sure there would be lots of interest from younger people just look at the Old Haines Hunter groups on Facebook one has around 30k members all discussing and talking about doing up boats from the same era as many of our yachts.

On the topic of the decline in numbers, I think the current administrators of our sport have a lot to answer for.
A senior rep from my club has some dispute/vendetta with an ex-member and dragged me into it, in the process breaching several rules and code of conduct obligations. I protested the club, which is the proper way to handle it. Since the protest I have had :
-- the boat vandalised, dock lines untied, power cords cut through to the copper, it got so bad my insurance forced me to shift marinas
-- the protest hearing was a sham, I was refused submissions on conflict of interest against the protest chairman, abused, and the Facts Found precluded any of my testimony.
-- senior club exec called a meeting with a charity I provide the boat for, to advise them to cease their association with me as my character was highly questionable.

I appealed to Australian sailing who made it even worse, so now we're preparing an application for CAS for fundamental breaches of their sports obligations under the Olympic banner. IOC is 90+ % of their funding, so dragging it all out into the public realm will hopefully at least expose some of the more blatant abuses and steps might be taken to protect the next poor trusting fool.

Sport administrators and a club structure that condone and allow weaponising of club assetts and members in pursuit of some personal vendetta...... there's some good reasons for a decline I would think...

Thanks BB, seems to be a sign of the times, narcissistic types and behavior seems to be having their time in the sun of late.

The issue I see with the sport is where the focus lies of our adminstrators, and it is not the grass roots, it is focused on the money. OUr sport has been driven over the decades to a single source of income, and that is the Olympics. I would argue that having a sailing Worlds competition is MUCH better for the sport than an Olympics. One is competing against the best in the world, the other limits entries to x number of sailors by country. Not condusive to growing a sport, but definitely condusive to adding color to the Olympic catalogue of offerings.

For a country like Australia where water sports are part of our makeup, we punch well above our weight in any class of our sport, but we chose to narrow our funding to one source only, the Olympics. .

And the sport is about to take the biggest financial hit from that sole supplier that we've seen in decades. Recently, the IOC (Olympics) had to cut back the amount of competitions in each sport for Japan, as the previous host nations were still bitching at the skyrocketing 10,000+ beds needed for the competing athletes and teams. So, the available funding dropped also, forcing the different sports to recalculate their expected budgets.

World Sailing are desperately awaiting the first drop of the sponsorship funding from the IOC for the Japan Olympics.
Without the olympics money, WS normal annual income is GBP 3 million.
Normal annual expenditure is about GBP 3 million.
The expected revenue to World Sailing from the Japan Olympics, mostly from TV rights, is GBP 12 million.
So, it looks pretty good so far.

But due to some bad management and the cuts in available funding, WS are now predicting a shortfall of GBP 1.6 million by the end of 2020. largely due to the cost of sending the teams to Japan. And that's including the Japan Olympics money. This if course directly impacts Australian Sailing's share of the spoils, and it isn't healthy there either.

So the focus for WS, AS and every other MNA is every year becoming more and more about Olympic revenue, at the expense of attracting revenue and events through other classes in our sport. That's it, pure and simple. If your class of boat doesn't have a chance at the Olympics, it isn't going to get a shred of attention, or expenditure. Keelboat and trailer sailer engagement and take-up is dying, because there is no benefit to our national authority and club structure in their efforts in maintaining their existing funding, or attracting the lost funding , from the Olympic cash cow. Club boats and members, the meat and potatoes of our sport, are no longer a focus aside from that of thinly veiled annoyance, and are now simply a potential increased revenue stream, that's it.

That attitude certainly doesn't help a sailor to enter into, or step up up a level, in the sport.

BB, I might come down for Sail Paradise this year, I'll PM you and try and drag you out for a day, shake out the New years eve cobwebs.
Do you mean you are upscaling the boat, or just the berthing?

SB

PhilY posts here is the main RO for the big MH regattas.
Give him a call and have a chat.
I am sure he will listen

You mean the club with about 700 marina berths that got under 20 entries for their biggest club sailing event of the year.
That one!

Hi all,
I'm new to here but not to the sport... sad to hear of the ****fight south of the river, but hopefully other clubs such as QCYC can benefit, the club has a steady fleet with a lot of new blood slowly building there skillset with a summer program broken up to include different series, meaning not to taxing on home life if u cant commit to it all... plus the classic scene with BOTY and co. which is about to take off next winter. Last Saturday was a good fleet including a Sydney 38 / Thompson 7 and e770, be great if just one or more could join... brisvegas sailing was at its best and most fun 20+ years ago with the big winter series events at Mooloolaba and QCYC when there was less dependence on the mafia style mentality of RQ.

just need someone who can dredge
shady4