Mark,

Actually my club is an example of what you are describing. Zandvoort is a town of maybe 20.000 people and we have 4 sailing clubs on a stretch of about 15 km. My club is the larger of the 4 and we have about 100 boat in a beach side mast-up parking. Our club house is build up every april and broken down in oktober and is two stories high and features a bar, showers, lockers, sail storage and a place to sit under the sun screens and talk about the good old days. In addition the club owns its own race committee boat, two tractors and as score of bouys and other race course related material. Each year an distance race event is organised that attracts about 100 racing catamarans. On weekend days and wednesday evening the bar is manned by the club members.

http://www.wvz.vuurwerk.nl


But I'm not really sure what you are asking me.

We too find it hearder every year to find volunteers to fill important club positions. Of those 100 boats only a good 20 are really active, the rest just shows up 5 times a year in mid summer and take a short recreational sail. Our club racing is existant and yes we do get between 7 and 20 boat in our club races but every time it involves some effort to get everyone out. On good club race days we do have about 10 to 15 F18's participating with the other boats being F16's, Inter-20's, an A-cat and a Prindle 18. All the smaller boats like Hobie 16 etc have just disappeared. They are still present at the club but not owned by really active sailors, certainly not the racing kind.

I think that the large size of our club in members is keeping us a float. Afterall if you have 100 boats in the parking then chances are you get about 20 really active sailors. That is one reason why I wrote earlier that a large recreational base is important for the cat sailing scene. If our club had only 30 boats or so then relatively speaking only 1 or 2 boats would be really active. I also believe that the fact that tour 20 active crews are nearly always about makes the other 80 crews come to the club once in a while. They know that stuff is happening and so even if they don't sail themselfs they tend to come and grab a beer, do some talking and watch the active sailors do their stuff on the water. So in return I would say that the 20 active sailors are in their turn very important to keep they other 80 crews "on board". Without these 100 crews the club could get into financial problems.

It is my opinion that activity and "news" is what is keeping our scene active and alive. Thank God ! for the rise of formula catamarans, I would also say. Because these classes do tend to keep the "club talk" going and they do concentrate the individual efforts of the active racers into a single minded race scene. We must remember that back in the 80's European club would be even more active and the many local club race fleets would easily attract 30 to 40 boat in the weekends. So even we are in decline, but we had alot more margin to tack up the decline without losing much of our infrastructure.

One other consideration that I would like to mention is that our club is not only catering for the cat and dinghy sailors but also for the wind surfers and kite surfers. I think making the club more broad in this scene is a very wise approach. Again, new stuff is happening and this keeps the "old gits" at the bar and club house young and alive. I think that this leasure time oppurtunity for the recreational sailors is part of the reason the club is generating enough income and buzz to have the people coming back.


http://www.lunaforkidz.nl/kite/kite180307.html

In another club I belonged to years ago I have seen what can happen if this sensitive balance is not maintained. This club almost collapsed within 3 years. Its membership went down from about a 100 crews (boats) to just shy of 60 boats. The first thing to go were the active club racers. This lead to the club racing to be terminated and the active sailors went to other clubs or stopped sailing. This meant volunteers were very hard to come by and the recreational sailors started to frequent the club less and less because halve the time nobody was around. This lead to negative feedback loop and soon all members were coming less and less. As a result the race scene was completely finished without a chance to get restarted and things got worse and worse. That is what can happen when you reach negative critical mass.

Anything else you want to know ?

Wouter

Sarahlala wrote;

"if poor countries want to develop sailing programs it isn't the obligation of other nations (at the disadvantage of their own constituents) to provide for this. This HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SPORT. It should have no reflection on the Olympic classes."

It seems that you are advocating that sailing (dominated by rich countries) basically gives two fingers to the "poorer" countries. The problem is that the "poor" countries may well then turn around and give two fingers to the whole sport of Olympic sailing.

If sailors in general or cat sailors in particular go "**&^% you" to small countries, we cannot be surprised if they reply with "*&^%$ you too, we'll vote you out". A look at the submissions that dumped the Europe for the cheaper Radial is enough to indicate that giving countries the finger is a losing game. So thinking about the poorer countries DOES have a part to play when choosing Olympic classes.


Cat sailing in Australia? I have to applaud Mark's rant. The cat scene seems to look outside for the causes of its decline, rather than doing constructive things like working on junior classes. The Pittwater Youth Hobie 16 move was great in some ways, but where did the kids come from? Flying 11s, MJs etc. The T 4.9s were looking to raid 29er kids. Why can't cats breed their own young sailors, just like the dinghy clubs do, instead of annoying the dinghy clubs by try to "steal" the kids the dinghy sailors have just spent years training?

I'm not saying that there has to be a split between dinghy kids and cat kids, just that the cats could work on creating their own juniors, or perhaps supporting the clubs and classes that do create juniors.

It seems like we always come back to this, how to grow catsailing. Over the winter there has been a lot of threads on this topic here. The largest craze was probably the F-12 discussions and how to grow youth sailing..

In the end it boils down to activity, inclusiveness, FUN and hard working idealists who start things and keep processes running. Loose one of these key persons or aspects, and everything fall apart.
The trend is that less and less people volunteer for positions, we see this all the time in our community and have worked a bit on solutions to this. Without active and interested volunteers to fill positions in clubs nothing happens.


Mark, catsailing is not huge in all parts of Europe. Here in Scandinavia it's an outsiders sport and only Sweden have an F-18 fleet *gasp*. Sweden have the Arhipelago race, but still catsailing isn't a big sport.
Now, you can ask yourself what you can do for the sport, and personally I would like an in-depth description on how to work to windward, focusing on sail trim and helming techniques <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> Martin Luther King said it, and everybody can contribute. Even just participating on this forum helps the growth of catamaran sailing.

After doing quite a lot of landyachting this winter and trying some aspects I had envisioned for the F12 I'm more then ever attracted by the concept of the F12. It is just so simple. Very quick to rig, low cost, easy to store in a shed and I still expect it to be quite fast, like a true catamaran.

More then ever I think it would be a great little boat and especially handy to build up our own youth (cat) programs.

I still think it to be a real shame that that project didn't continue.

Maybe we should re-evaluate that.

Wouter

Wouter,

rest assured, with time it will happen.

Mark,

You draw some ridiculous conclusions at times. If you took the time to think about what I posted there are two messages in there. Firstly I'm suggesting you don't portray your experiences in Sydney as representative of all of Australia.

Next, perhaps NSW could look at the model we have down here and apply it themselves. Our exact version probably won't work in your city however it could be a good start. From Wouters post, it looks like his experience is not much different to many other clubs the world over. Feel free to patronize me if you like - I'm just happy to drive 15 min to the yc, sails are up in another 5 and we are sailing in a good fleet. We have approx 50 (catamaran) places in our yard which 46 are filled with active sailors. The other 4 are non active sailors who will be asked to remove their boats during the off season as there is a waiting list for their spots. Of course on top of those we have the sailors who prefer to take their boats home and of course the mono fleet. Several clubs (and at least 1 class association)also have a plan for growth which is currently being rolled out.

Mike.