Cruising Association - membership vs non-membership

[Tomaret]

When I lived in the Netherlands I was a memeber, at overseas rates, but frankly got noting outwith of it, which may have been more my fault than the Association's.

When I came back to the UK there was a mix up over change if address and renewal and they wrote threatening to throw me out if I didn't pay the annual fee, even though I had written to them saying the the overseas rate was no longer appropriate and asked to know the UK resident's rate. I decided to let my membership lapse and as a perennial potterer in the Channel I haven't missed it.

 

[Babylon]

Its a super organisation jammed with resources, but in the several years that I've been a member:

- I haven't had the time or need to go to Limehouse,
- I only cruise the Channel, as the time when I might go further afield for long periods is still quite a way off, so its very largely irrelevant,
- I haven't been interested enough to open the last few copies of the quarterly magazine sent to me,

...so I think I'll buy two or three bottles of expensive single-malts instead of renewing my membership.

Mind you, I also haven't read YM for years and gave up my subscription to PBO eighteen months ago, as my own experience now - aided by all sorts of specific advice on technical and cruising stuff from ybw as I need it - enables me to just get on with the sailing!

In the final analysis, I don't right now have a need for the CA. If that changes, then I'll review things.

PS I sometimes get the feeling that, like the aeromodelling club I belong to, the world is getting very full of very old people!

 

[Parsonsheath]

Llmsorry, could not resist a commentator

I too am a member of similar organisations as you and wondered about the CA for years. I joined at the LBS earlier this year using the Westerly Owners discount to see what it was like.
In a nutshell I'd say that if you are just pottering about the coast then its not going to be worth it. If you are going to go further afield then yes it's worth a trial year. I went to see Bob Shepton about 4 weeks ago and went to CA House for the first time. Was very impressed with the library, all the pilot books and charts they have. They sold a lot of their historical library to Cambridge Uni which paid for the building of CA House. As a member you do have access to the library in Cambridge too. There is also a useful app called Captains Mate which has a write-up about every port world wide the CA members have visited. You can also stay at CA house although it is a bit basic. There are also Local Harbour Representatives world wide that you can call upon for assistance if you need it. Finally there are several members forums covering areas all over the world.
I'm going to renew this coming year but I think I will be monitoring my usage of the club's facillities to see if I'm getting value for my membership - which incidentally also includes my wife for the £120
Mike

 

[blenkinsop]

NB OCC has a a membership qualification of a 1000nm ocean passage - hence encountering members in far flung places, they are likely to be fairly adventurous people (eg a congenial evening with about 6 crews in Tahiti all with the same burgee.

 

[jerrytug]

Just to add, I have just downloaded from the CA website, on to my ipad, a detailed cruising guide to Iceland, and another one to Norway, which are easily the equals of any overpriced, and out of date, and shelf-space-gobbling, hard cover pilot books, I have saved fifty quid in a few minutes...and whetted my appetite for exploration as well!

As a CA member I have access to 'much better than pilot book' information, from cruising yachtspersons who have been there, for every cruising area in the world.

Although the 'blue water' section seems to be under revision right now, hope they fix it soon.

 

[Garry & June 'Friendship']

Personally I believe the answer lies in the question ... The 'Cruising association' . The main benefits in my opinion are for people who are actually out there cruising. By that I mean abroad. The discounts you can get as CA members at many med base marinas would by far outweigh what the actual joining fee is. That is without considering other financial benefits as highlighted by jerrytug above.

 

[cmanby@icloud.com]

We thoroughly enjoy CA membership, for courses, forums, and lectures. Lots of free advice, good club house, library.

 

[duncan99210]

Personally I believe the answer lies in the question ... The 'Cruising association' . The main benefits in my opinion are for people who are actually out there cruising. By that I mean abroad. The discounts you can get as CA members at many med base marinas would by far outweigh what the actual joining fee is. That is without considering other financial benefits as highlighted by jerrytug above.

+1. The CA pays for itself through various discounts without taking any of the other benefits into consideration.

 

[Nostrodamus]

A couple of years ago we joined the CA as we were setting out cruising. At the time I thought the whole CA was in a mess and felt like a club where they took your membership money and insisted you did all the work by putting in reports of the places you visited. The website was all over the place and I felt I was just a income stream for them and they did not want to listen to members.
I know there are some excellent people I came across in the CA like Jim Barslem and Tony Cross who would do anything they could to help you and wanted the club to be brought into the modern era. I know they are doing their best to do this so hopefully it has changed a lot. I know Jim and myself advocated having a free trial of the CA for a short period so you could actually see what they have to offer. In previous days the CA was a closed door to a secret society in which you had to join to actually find out what was behind the door. Hopefully they will see by making it more open then more people would join. Also having paid the yearly fee if you want any of the pennants or flag they are all extra. I thought you should get one free with membership which would promote the CA but that idea was ignored.
The CA was not for us at the time and I have not been a member for a couple of years so I don't know if the CA has changed. Having said that we did recoup our membership fees from discounts in marinas along the Atlantic coast. The Captains app is also one of the best apps I came across whilst sailing and that alone is worth a good part of the fee.
For some the CA is excellent and for others a waste of money.
The fee for cruisers out of the UK is reduced but then again the club house and library is of no use.

 

[Twister_Ken]

Been a member since 2000. Some years I get a lot out of it, sometimes a little. One year I saved the cost of membership just on the discount of a new headsail from one of the discount suppliers. I worked out the annual membership cost is equivalent to approximately one pint of beer every ten days. The best CA thing I've done was the Channel Islands and Brittany cruise last year. Yes, we could have done it by ourselves, but doing it in company with 10 other crews, with social events organised, berthing discounts, restaurant special deals, etc, was much more fun. And the extra cost was zero.

I feel slightly proprietorial as I'm now a member of the Cruising Association marketing committee, so you may wish to take this with a pinch of salt (although there's no need to) but the Association is a very different beast today than it was a few years back. Then it was on the verge of financial difficulty, today it makes a surplus which is being invested in improving member benefits. Then the bar and restaurant was run in-house - today it's leased to a professional caterer. Then, the percentage of grey beards was very high, today it has declined noticeably. Then the library was a library, today it's an information centre with much of the material available online (more by the weeks as a programme of digitisation grinds onwards). If you've ever wondered why marine windfarm blades have to be at least 20m above HAT, it's because of the CA. If you followed the planning enquiry into the proposal for a container terminal at Marchwood on Southampton Water, you'll know that the CA was one of the principal objectors (the RYA backed out). The website has over 12000 pages of information available only to members and the number of pages grows inexorably. Then, the only sea-area groups were the Mediterranean and the Baltic. In the last few years we've launched groups for Biscay, Channel and Northern France, Bluewater and the North Sea. Last year we started a Celtic group which meets in various west coast locations. Membership has just passed the 5000 mark - a number that would have seemed unobtainable even three years back. I could go, but you're probably bored by now.

However, let me just add the spring series of lectures (Wednesday evenings at Limehouse, although many of them are repeated in local venues (usually pubs or S.C.s) in the UK). I want to go to most of these, if I can get a pass from Madame!

Going Boldly - across, beneath and beyond the ocean, by Jeremy Batch
What sort of lifejackets did the ancient Egyptians wear, and how did the Inuit make their kayaks self-righting? How did the Assyrians manage to swim in full armour, and when did we first learn to breathe underwater? How have we (almost) overcome scurvy, and why haven't we been able to do the same with seasickness? How did the shipworm help Marc Brunel to drive a tunnel under the Thames, and why was the champagne flat at the party? How did the tomato worm and the Playtex company help twelve men to walk on the Moon, and what will the next generation of spacesuits and diving suits look like? Who were Gill, Gore, Hansen, Musto, Henri and Lloyd, and what are their companies working on now? And if we can land men on the Moon, why can't we make a warm, waterproof glove?

Albania, hit or miss, by Chris Smith.
Two of the best known Mediterranean cruising grounds, Ionian and Croatia, are separated by 150 miles of Albania. So Chris would like to know why he met only six other cruising yachts during his two weeks in Albanian waters. Is it the mines (6,000 destroyed in 2013), the lack of yacht-friendly harbours or just the reputation? Find out why he confesses to breathing a sigh of relief when it was all over, but was also so glad to have been.

From Norway to the West Coast of Scotland, by Howard Steen.
Howard had spent three seasons exploring the coast and fjords of Norway with his Vancouver 27, Martha Maria when, in May 2013, he set off from the Hardangerijord to sail to the West Coast of Scotland. Howard will describe leaving Norway and crossing to the Shetland Islands, cruising among the Shetland and Orkney islands and sailing to the West Coast via the Caledonian Canal. His talk will compare the sailing, scenery and wildlife in Scotland and Norway and, as a bonus, include some highlights from the 2014 season spent cruising in the Outer Hebrides and the far North West. The talk will be illustrated with Howard's photos and some of his wonderful sketches and paintings.

Shipwreck, small boats and high latitudes, by Roger Taylor.
In this talk illustrated with superb slides and some extraordinary video sequences, Roger Taylor tells how shipwreck on a square-rigger led him to a lifetime of small-boat singlehanded ocean sailing. Author of three much praised books, ‘Voyages of a Simple Sailor’, ‘Mingming & the Art of Minimal Ocean Sailing’ and, ‘Mingming & the Tonic of Wildness’, Roger has been sailing for more than 55 years. He has taken 19ft, 20ft and 24ft self-built and engineless yachts from the Roaring Forties to the Arctic Circle. In 2011 he sailed to 80°North, and in 2014 to 79˚North. In January 2010 Roger was awarded the Jester Medal by the Ocean Cruising Club for ‘an outstanding contribution to the art of singlehanded sailing’.

Round the Islands, by James Eddison.
Having taken delivery of a new swing keel yacht, James and Minh set out to learn what they could do with it, and in the process learned a lot about the wonderful islands we call home. The Isles of Scilly, Lundy, St Kilda, the Orkneys, Lindisfarne and many more, were explored as they made their circumnavigation all the way round the big island of mainland UK.

Braving it home from Sweden, by Cathy Brown
When Cathy and Richard Brown ordered the new Brave, an Arcona 410, they decided to deliver her themselves from Arcona’s base near Stockholm to their home port on the River Orwell.
The project proved unexpectedly challenging in a number of ways, from the logistics of getting all the necessary gear to the boat, to the early season weather. They got to know the boat during a brief exploration of the Stockholm Archipelago before setting off on the 1000-mile passage home. They had long wanted to cruise in the Baltic, and despite inevitable trials and tribulations, thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

Investigating marine accidents, by Roger Brydges
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch is the government organisation that investigates accidents involving vessels of all types and sizes. Its aim is to ensure that the causes are determined, so that safety lessons can be learned through the publication of its reports. A keen sailor himself, Roger Brydges has been with the MAIB for 19 years and has been involved in the investigation of the majority of accidents involving sailing boats during that time. Roger’s presentation will describe the MAIB’s methods and techniques as they apply to all maritime sectors, before concentrating on some sailing case studies that have resulted in published reports.

If at first you don’t succeed, by Jeanne Socrates
When Jeanne sailed into Victoria harbour at 2.36am on Monday, July 8, 2013, she also entered the record books. At nearly 71, she became the oldest female sailor to complete a non-stop, solo, unassisted circumnavigation. During her journey, she had had to climb the mast, lower herself upside down into the wake water to replace her wind-steering rudder and for the last two months lost use of both onboard computers. Two previous nonstop attempts had been cut short, the first by rigging and other issues and the second by damage sustained in a knockdown near Cape Horn. But finally she triumphed and that success, along with the three-and-a-half circumnavigations it took to achieve it, has been recognised by several prestigious awards, not least the CA's Duchess of Kent trophy, presented by Patron Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, after her first solo circumnavigation in 2011.

 

[Monique]

I am on my first year of membership. ...... The library is superb, it's not open very often unfortunately.
.........

Library alone is worth the admission price. I'll renew next year.

 

[atheneoflymington]

We sailed down to the Med via the outside route and cruised around the Med for 10 years without being CA members. It was only when I joined last year that I realised what I'd been missing. Since then I've made extensive use of CAptains Mate and posted numerous updates myself on harbours we've visited for the benefit of other members; I've saved probably over £100 in discounts on chandlery and spares; I've overwintered our sailing yacht at a 15 per cent discount, easily saving the annual fee; I've recently received considerable help from other members in buying a second boat to cruise the French canals; I've downloaded copies of other members' logs from the CA website to help in planning future cruises as well as free cruising guides - including an excellent guide to the Inland Waterways of France and Belgium - I could go on, but I think the point is made. Would I join if we were UK based? Maybe; there are active sections covering most UK regions. But once you start any serious cruising I'd say CA membership is arguably more useful than most pilot books.

Athene of Lymington

 

[Fascadale]

Is there any chance of the CA providing discounted membership to those of us living outwith the SE of England? An earlier poster said something about an overseas membership rate for living in the Netherlands. Probably closer to Limehouse than the Athens of the North

It is very, very unlikely that I would ever visit Limehouse, use the bar there, use the library or attend any "events" there.

I might be interested in a membership that gave access to the digital resources and the overseas support.

 

[Nostrodamus]

Can I ask why the CA gives a 25% discount to certain owners associations. To me this means if you are not is one of the few owners associations mentioned you pay 25% more.
This discount would surely be better used to reduce costs to everyone or offer something free.

 

[ChattingLil]

The library is superb, it's not open very often unfortunately.

Library alone is worth the admission price. I'll renew next year.

Just to remind you all, I volunteer to open the library at least once a month out of of normal hours. (normal hours are office hours - 9-5.30 weekdays).

I open once a month on Saturday mornings during the winter and once a month on Wednesday evenings during the summer. Other times by arrangement - contact the office to request it. If I'm around, I'm happy to do it.

 

[jimbaerselman]

Personally I believe the answer lies in the question ... The 'Cruising association' . The main benefits in my opinion are for people who are actually out there cruising. By that I mean abroad. The discounts you can get as CA members at many med base marinas would by far outweigh what the actual joining fee is. That is without considering other financial benefits as highlighted by jerrytug above.

I'm correlating the surveys of CA members as mentioned above. About 2/3 of our members took up cruising by paying for formal training (average, around £2,000 over a couple of years), buying waterproofs (a few £100's) paying for charter (another £2,000 or so) then bought a boat, and spend thousands fitting out.

Our 5,000 members give us strong buying power. Suppliers offer our membership discounts of up to 15% - a potential saving for those starting to cruise of £600, and a lot more when fitting out.

So, actually, membership is cash positive for people thinking about taking up cruising, as well as those thinking of going further afield.

But the real need is for knowledge, and because each person's needs are different, that means face to face time with others who have done it so you can put their advice into perspective. Local Yacht Clubs do this very well, but they are a bit pricy. CA does it on-line, through its cruising guides and forums. This is a bit less effective than face to face time, but local section social events fill the gap.

But this is all cash stuff. Another reward is community spirit. Someone mentioned "you get out of it what you put in". Quite understandably, many members don't buy into that idea when they join. "Errm. You mean I've got to pay to help others enjoy Cruising? You must be joking!". Fair enough.

But after receiving lots of help in early years, many of our members morph into helpers, and gain great rewards from helping newcomers get more from their cruising activities - by organising events, editing cruising guides, keeping the CA Almanac up to date (better maps than Reeds!). And that's a key point, CA has lots of accurate, up to date, unvarnished truths about destinations and facilities.

Nostrodamus and others have reasonably criticised past weak communication with members, un-answered emails etc. But for the last two years we have had very effective General Managers running the office, which is now far more efficient. One result has been a dramatic increase in membership over the last year, and this is bringing the income for us to invest better services for members.

Which services? Well, when the last survey forms come in, we'll know.

 

[jimbaerselman]

Can I ask why the CA gives a 25% discount to certain owners associations. To me this means if you are not is one of the few owners associations mentioned you pay 25% more.
This discount would surely be better used to reduce costs to everyone or offer something free.

It's a cost of recruitment, much better value than advertising

Owners Associations know about their boats. CA knows about places to go. So mutual help wins.

Rather than paying for adverts in each other's magazine, it's much better to promote each other, and pay by results. So, for each new recruit from an owner's association there's a first year's discount so they can sample the goods. They pay full rate afterwards. Owner's association can then advertise the benefit to recruit members for their own Association. "£30 off first year's CA membership - more than re-pays our membership fee!"

Net result, more yotties know about both CA, and Owner's Associations. That means more members for both.

 

[Angele]

So, I went to the drinks and my impressions were as follows:

Nice building.

Limehouse is much easier to get to than my prejudiced mind believed. I was there 30 minutes after leaving my desk. (And it would be much quicker if I worked in the City as it is only 2 stops on the DLR from Bank).

Boy, hasn't Limehouse been transformed in the last 20 years. (I particularly like "The Narrow" where we went after the drinks had tailed off for something to eat, since the food choice in the CA bar was uninspiring).

Clearly Thursday evening at the CA is not "peak night". (Would the bar normally be open then, or would this have been a one-off for the sailing school drinks?)

That is about it, really, as I didn't get to see the rest of the place. (I didn't try nosing around, but there certainly wasn't anyone volunteering to show people around).

I do think I will attend some of their Wednesday evening lectures, starting with the Norway/Scotland one in Feb, plus the odd Saturday seminar. But, as mentioned earlier, you can do this as a non-member for a marginal incremental cost. I don't think there is much else I will get out of the CA at my stage in life (not yet a long distance cruiser).

JimB, in addition to surveying the CA's membership, you could probably do with undertaking a similar survey of people (like me) who choose not to join. The bottom line for me is that there just isn't anything for me that is worth paying £120 per year (after a discounted first year membership). Whilst it probably is against my best interest in saying so, the CA makes non-membership too good a proposition for someone like me - i.e. the talks and seminars are only marginally more expensive for me. There are these mystical discounts which are supposedly there for the taking but, since the CA doesn't tell non-members what they are, I have no way to value them.

All discounts are shown on the Member-only pages of this site...

So, here's to my first year of "non-membership" of the CA.

 

[jimbaerselman]

Is there any chance of the CA providing discounted membership to those of us living outwith the SE of England? An earlier poster said something about an overseas membership rate for living in the Netherlands. Probably closer to Limehouse than the Athens of the North

Speaking personally, as IT keeps slowly improving communications, perhaps CA should stop offering discounts to overseas members!

Rent from third parties using the club house subsidises member services, so the club house actually benefits all members.

 

[jimbaerselman]

JimB, in addition to surveying the CA's membership, you could probably do with undertaking a similar survey of people (like me) who choose not to join. The bottom line for me is that there just isn't anything for me that is worth paying £120 per year (after a discounted first year membership).

I wish that were possible! How do I detect people who choose not to join? What we do is survey a percentage of visitors to the web site who are not members - to find out what their needs are. And talk with those who leave (or at least, as many as we can track down), to find out why they leave

Whilst it probably is against my best interest is saying so, the CA makes non-membership too good a proposition for someone like me - i.e. the talks and seminars are only marginally more expensive for me.

you've made an excellent case for increasing the differential for non-members!

There are these mystical discounts which are supposedly there for the taking but, since the CA doesn't tell non-members what they are, I have no way to value them.

Difficult one . . . publish the lists and suppliers get into arguments with people claiming membership who can't prove it . . .

However, if you ask next time you visit, maybe someone would be nice enough to let you scan the list for three seconds or so.

As long as you enjoy your visits, we'll be happy.