Scheduling significantly less club races per year. Not being on top of who has race committee duty for the day. Cancelling races when say only 6 boats are going to race when the club house rules dictate 7 boats at minimum. Doing only 1 race a day because the conditions weren't perfect. Taking 1 hour or more breaks between each individual race. Would take forever for the results to be posted. General slacking on everything related to club racing.




What happened was that the active crews started second guessing "the racing", so if the inland had some grey skies then more and more crews would not even go to the beach. This resulted in the club getting less often the minimal amount of racers and more often cancelling the race day to the sachrine of the crews that did show up. Within a very short time no crews showed up at all unless the conditions were absolutely perfect (which is rare). With this club activity gone less recreational sailors showed and the active sailing started going to neighbouring clubs to do racing. From then on it was downhill very quickly. Some aggrevating happens were added to that and that was that.

I'm one of the crews that switched in that period. I was one of the last to do so but I have never looked back. The latter 2 years just weren't the same as the period before. I didn't feel any connection to the club anymore and it is hard to be friends with crews that are on the beach only 5 times a year or less. I felt lonely and figured I got never feel worse then that after I switch and only feel better so I did.

The club I'm not had similar happens right before I became a member there and they solved this by giving extra attention and status to the club racing. They find 2 volunteers (active sailor) to become the dedicated RC of the club, put money into maintaining a RC boat that could do the RC work in all conditions and just scheduled club races every weekend were there wasn't racing outside of the club. This means about 9 to 10 race days per season and our season runs from april to october. So on average a club race day in every two weeks.

The dedicated RC we had was firm in everything. They layed down full race-course that would also be found at larger events and they would always lay out the course irrespectabally of the weather and how many boats would show up. Even when the winds were non-existant or downright nuclear, they would show up to the club, make preparations and postpone the racing the wait for improvements. If the winds were within 3 knots and 25 knots then the racing would be held, rain, sunshine, cold, didn't matter. The races were always done back to back, so no return to the beach for lng breaks. Preliminary Results were read out loud while the racing crews were drinking a beer at the club house. Neighbouring clubs were actively invited and kept up to date on our club racing.

What happened. All the crews would show up EVEN when the conditions were mostly likely to bad to race. But because you can now unless you have stood on the beach for a while all crews didn't take the risk of losing out on several points and came anyway. Most definately also because everybody would be there anyway, and it would always be great fun drinking with the others and generally talking non-sense. Of course other club members would show up as well and the group in the bar could be quite large. Producing results including the times lead to the crews really going for it, trying to improve themselves over the season. Newbies showed up and felt more secure because alot of more experienced sailors were out there with them often giving valuable advice. Etc, etc, etc.

From there the club racing scene crew back and quite a few crews bought brand new boats over the years. They felt they could justify it and several of them started racing outside of the club racing scene.

This active group of about 15 crews bought (new) over the last 3 years : 3 Infusions, 2 Tigers, 1 Capricorn, 2 inter-20, 1 FX-one and 3 F16's. The other crews bought relatively new second handers and/or 1 year old suits of sails to upgrade. In general this group is creating turn-over beyond their numerical size. Just outside of this group I believe 2 new nacra 500, 2 new nacra 570, 1 new nacra 580 and a handful of second handers were bought. Some of this group are recreational racers/sailors but of a relatively active grade. 2/3 of our clubmembership is old beaten up boats which are badly maintained and who show up less then 5 time a season. In this group there is no money to be earned next to their membership fees. But they do enjoy the buzz of the larger club from time to time, looking at new boats bought, talking with the new owners, asking for a testride. And this buzz comes from ....

You'll get the point

Wouter