Demand for moorings plummeting?

[Tempus]

https://www.sportengland.org/media/11746/1x30_sport_16plus-factsheet_aps10.pdf

General trend is that sports which require a lot of time - Golf, Sailing, even cycling are in decline in favour of "short, sharp" experiences.

 

[maby]

If population is growing ( agreed) then what sporting activities are expanding proportionally to match? We have suggested that sailing is contracting. Is sport across the community as a whole contracting? Is it that the increased portion of the community is a bunch of lazy b..rs who do not believe in sport or just cannot afford to be involved in sport?
Re the increase in population -there are figures to demonstrate that this is due to 2 major factors- 1) immigration 2) birth rate from the immigrant population- that includes the "slightly more established" immigrant population . It has been noted that the birth rate among the "long term" or indigenous UK population is actually falling.
It may be ( & i am not trying to start a Brexit drift here) that if Brexit does actually reduce the immigration numbers then the rate of population expansion may be reduced.. If the immigrant sector of the population gains wealth then they may have funds to spend on sport. However, if they have a culture that does not lend itself to sport then that will not happen. Perhaps it depends on whether an eastern or a western culture eventually comes out on top
It also depends on what sort of sport. male dominated mass sports such as football will always be tops. Sports such as sailing are a bit more " refined" & need a bit more , shall we say, effort & skill just to get past the basics. Not quite like kicking a ball against a wall on an estate.
I wonder if anyone has actually tried to "grade" pastimes & sports as a level of difficulty starting at entry level & working upwards. IeTo go walking just means flapping ones legs back & forth, to go fishing one has to buy rods & reel, bait etc. , camping -buy a tent. caravaning needs a car & a caravan & so on. To go sailing on a cruiser can be quite difficult if you want your own boat.

To what extent is sailing a "sport" to the majority of boat owners? While it undoubtedly is for some, the majority of boat owners that I know view their vessel as a cross between a Winnebago and a weekend cottage.

 

[oldgit]

What are you on about are you some kind of commie?

Aha .....personal abuse always an indication of paucity of argument.

"You might be interested to know that statistically today mortage re-payments are a lower proportion of take home pay than in the 80's because interest rates were up to 15%."

the 15% rates were transitory, rates reaching 15 per cent in late 1989 but dropped back to normal during 1991, the rates were already dropping in 1990.
Many like me were on a fixed rate and many others had B/S mortgages where rate only changed once a year which also shielded many from the worst affects.

My memory is bit vague and cannot remember for the life of me who the chancellor or Prime Minister was during that tumultuous period.

However uncomfortable ,the 1980s proved to be a very a successful period for all boat manufacturers, many no longer with us.
Most of the larger more comfortable mid range cruisers in our club were built and purchased in the 1980s and 1990s with a gradual decline after that golden period.
So surplus cash was around then even with rates at 15% . It would appear not to be so today with rates at 1 or 2 %.
Many of those boats no longer leave the moorings on any regular basis.

 

[maby]

Aha .....personal abuse always an indication of paucity of argument.

"You might be interested to know that statistically today mortage re-payments are a lower proportion of take home pay than in the 80's because interest rates were up to 15%."

the 15% rates were transitory, rates reaching 15 per cent in late 1989 but dropped back to normal during 1991, the rates were already dropping in 1990.
Many like me were on a fixed rate and many others had B/S mortgages where rate only changed once a year which also shielded many from the worst affects.

My memory is bit vague and cannot remember for the life of me who the chancellor or Prime Minister was during that tumultuous period.

However uncomfortable ,the 1980s proved to be a very a successful period for all boat manufacturers, many no longer with us.
Most of the larger more comfortable mid range cruisers in our club were built and purchased in the 1980s and 1990s with a gradual decline after that golden period.
So surplus cash was around then even with rates at 15% . It would appear not to be so today with rates at 1 or 2 %.
Many of those boats no longer leave the moorings on any regular basis.

The issue of interest rates is far outweighed by the inflation rate for any long term purchase like a house. Provided the interest rate does not go up significantly after you've taken out the mortgage, it impacts on the total sum you end up paying for the house, but you could be paying 50% interest in an economy with 60% inflation and your mortgage would still look cheaper next year than it does this year.

The problem for young people these days is that house price inflation has not followed general inflation. We bought our first house in the early eighties on a mortgage of three times my salary. I was a junior programmer at the time. We stayed in that house for about fifteen years during which time I was promoted to quite a senior position within the company - we sold the house for slightly more than three times my salary. By that time, my wife was working and making a decent income - we bought our next house on the proceeds of the first one plus about three times our combined salary - we've been in this one for more than 20 years, we are running a successful business and three times our combined salary would not buy it now. What hope do the younger generation have?

 

[oldgit]

What hope do the younger generation have?

Not much with boomers like me who could not believe their luck when the weekly increase in the value of the house was more than your weekly income.
YeeHaa. and all TAX FREE.
Just flog the house, buy the next one and wait for it all to happen again.
Then downsize and count the cash......
You then retire, use some of your TAX FREE lump sum from your defined benefit scheme(remember those) buy a couple of BTL with cash and remove any cheap starter homes from the market.
If you really lucky there will be both you and your wifes parents houses to inherit.
Life is so tough for the boomers
In the very near future you will have a nation divided between the property haves and the no chances.
What you do about it, well above my paygrade.

 

[Poignard]

https://www.sportengland.org/media/11746/1x30_sport_16plus-factsheet_aps10.pdf

General trend is that sports which require a lot of time - Golf, Sailing, even cycling are in decline in favour of "short, sharp" experiences.

Also gliding and bridge; and all kinds of hobbies such as model engineering, boat-building, restoring old vehicles.

 

[jac]

Also gliding and bridge; and all kinds of hobbies such as model engineering, boat-building, restoring old vehicles.

Interesting that the definition in the report includes those that partake vigorously on a weekly basis which may be at odds with the way that many sail - especially the vigorous bit ( maybe in my dinghy sailing days) but even the weekly bit. Personally - even when I was keen enough to break ice in the bottom of a dinghy to go sailing I would have struggled to say I did it weekly. With a bigger boat to get 1 or 2 weekends in every month over a 6 month period is a success.

 

[Kelpie]

Also gliding and bridge; and all kinds of hobbies such as model engineering, boat-building, restoring old vehicles.

perhaps there is a dilution of potential ways to spend your spare time. Every year new pastimes are created, so people drop out of the old ones to some extent. Ten years ago not many people were blogging/vlogging, for example...

 

[Babylon]

perhaps there is a dilution of potential ways to spend your spare time. Every year new pastimes are created, so people drop out of the old ones to some extent. Ten years ago not many people were blogging/vlogging, for example...

What an interesting thread overall: a much broader review of how pressures and expectations have changed over the last couple of generations.

The squeeze on time is a big factor, but so is the exponentially-pervasive influence of technology. When I was a kid I spent months making model aeroplanes from plans and supplies of balsa and tissue-paper, not just because it fascinated me but because after school and in the holidays there was nothing much else to do. TV was limited and there was no technology except the telephone, the bicycle or the bus to connect you interactively to your small network of mates. The same kid today is conditioned into a repetitive cycle of dopamine-hitting screen-based 'experiences' (err.. just like I'm doing right now!), the removal of which depletes the brain of serotonin, blah blah. Expectations of effort and the patience needed to achieve outcomes in the longer-term are radically-reduced. If there isn't a commercial profit to be had, the activity isn't going to be sexily marketed.

My son's mate deliberately crashed his model glider, not because he wasn't competent to fly it safely, but because his brain - conditioned by computer-gaming - momentarily put itself into virtual mode and in an impulse to see what happened pushed it too hard into the ground. But in this case there was no re-set button, and it took me a whole evening to repair it.

Hang on to the real world folks, and grab those free moorings while you can!

 

[dom]

My son's mate deliberately crashed his model glider, not because he wasn't competent to fly it safely, but because his brain - conditioned by computer-gaming - momentarily put itself into virtual mode and in an impulse to see what happened pushed it too hard into the ground. But in this case there was no re-set button, and it took me a whole evening to repair it.

Dad the “reset button” Lol

 

[Bobc]

I agree with Babylon that there is simply a change in the way people live their lives.

The working week has changed. No longer do people work from 9am-5pm only. People are always connected with work in some way (email, social, etc.) and tend to work longer hours without really registering it (I know my daughter does). When I was young, when we left work on Friday, that was it until Monday. The entire weekend was free. there was no technology so you went and "did stuff".

Also, what people do in their spare time has changed. We, for instance, sit on the YBW forum posting stuff. Some people go out looking for Pokimons, others go and watch football matches, maybe go out socialising with their friends in noodle bars (rather than pubs, which is another change in behaviour).

My feeling is that anything that requires time, committment, and patience is pretty-much off the agenda these days. We talk about the decline in sailing, but motor boat and RIB ownership is on the rise, because you can get on it, start and drive it like a car, have a blast round for a couple of hours to get your speed-rush, and then go and do something else.

The world is moving passed the likes of us. We are now the "old fogies who don't get it".

 

[Old Thady]

I agree with Babylon that there is simply a change in the way people live their lives.

The working week has changed. No longer do people work from 9am-5pm only. People are always connected with work in some way (email, social, etc.) and tend to work longer hours without really registering it (I know my daughter does). When I was young, when we left work on Friday, that was it until Monday. The entire weekend was free. there was no technology so you went and "did stuff".

Also, the way families operate is different compared to when I was growing up in the 70s. Now both partners work full-time and their working days are often extremely busy. Consequently, weekends tend to be used for a lot of the stuff (such as supermarket shopping) that used to be done by the stay-at-home partner during the week. In addition, where kids used to be dragged along to do whatever the parents were doing, now the choice of activity is more child-centred. If I were a reasonably affluent young father nowadays, I think I'd forgo boat ownership and save money and hassle by chartering in the sun.

 

[TangaraToo]

My son's mate deliberately crashed his model glider, not because he wasn't competent to fly it safely, but because his brain - conditioned by computer-gaming - momentarily put itself into virtual mode and in an impulse to see what happened pushed it too hard into the ground. But in this case there was no re-set button,

Not just the young that fall in to that trap.
I spent a sunday morning practicing inverted hovering on the sim waiting for the rain to stop. When things got too far out of shape I just let it crash and started again. Afternoon spent at the club field practicing inverted hovering. It got out of shape and I just let it crash. That was a very expensive (£1500) mistake. I wasn't even a novice at the time having flown RC helicopters from the days before Gyros were available.

 

[Seajet]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/View-Hover...preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

 

[Daydream believer]

I agree with Babylon that there is simply a change in the way people live their lives.

The working week has changed. No longer do people work from 9am-5pm only. ".

I dunno what time zone you worked in - Utopia I think!!
I have never had a job like that.
Start at 07-05 ( don't ask why it was 5 past !!! all down to my father) finish at 17-30 ( 16-00 in winter)
Saturdays finish at 12-30;

 

[Tomahawk]

I
The world is moving passed the likes of us. We are now the "old fogies who don't get it".

That's as maybe, but I think the next generation and even other people of our age will never really get it

It being something like watching the sun go down in the middle of the bay of Biscay or being surrounded by a huge pod of dolfins. There are some things that cannot be described in words or VR for wich

 

[maby]

I'm not sure that sailing is dying out. There still seem to be plenty of youngsters (by my standard, at least) turning out in their racing gear early on a Saturday or Sunday at the Solent marinas and on a warm weekend in the waters between the Hamble and Cowes it can be difficult to find an empty spot large enough to capsize a dinghy. Is it the case that people are becoming more demanding of moorings and the market is shifting more towards high end marinas and away from trot buoys and the like? Marinas in the Portsmouth, Southampton, IoW area seem to have little space free - the further you go from the Solent, the cheaper moorings become and the easier it is to find one.

 

[TSB240]

I was based at Pwllheli marina for a few years on the cheap trot moorings in the outer harbour. I used to monitor the Marina waiting list and prices and the annual report issued by the money grabbing public authority owners.

The waiting list disappeared overnight one year. Cant remember when... The most interesting trend was the decline in ownership of sail boats and the increase in ownership of large powerboats. Over a period of 5 years the proportion of power to sail changed from 25/75 to 75/25 . They also used to publish the income from fuel sales. This one would have expected to have increased by a significantly higher proportion year on year. Not so the actual fuel sales dropped year on year. There is the possibility that secret bunkering was going on but I would suggest the majority of boats were being bought as cheap holiday homes with a fantastic view of the Snowdonia Mountain range and Cardigan bay never to leave their berths all year. (Oh electricity used to be unmetered and in on the berth price!).
During the same time the shoreside facilities were significantly upgraded with a national watersports centre to support the running of dinghy training and championships up to international level . I do hope this will encourage youngsters to take up the gentle art of cruising but suspect this will be a minority.

The trot moorings remain cheap and under utilized to the extent that they removed a number to help alleviate the shallow access problems to the marina.

The dry stack or trailer launching service has also expanded by a considerable amount. This overwhelms the small boat launching ramp at peak times. This is heavilly utilized by the "Cheshire on Sea " set many with limited time (and experience IMHO) except for a blast up to Abersoch or Llanbedrog and back a few weekends a year. Their time is even more precious as they are all subjected to the huge queues on the A55 to return home! The work life balance is a lost cause for them!

 

[Daydream believer]

I was based at Pwllheli marina for a few years on the cheap trot moorings in the outer harbour. I used to monitor the Marina waiting list and prices and the annual report issued by the money grabbing public authority owners.

The waiting list disappeared overnight one year. Cant remember when... The most interesting trend was the decline in ownership of sail boats and the increase in ownership of large powerboats. Over a period of 5 years the proportion of power to sail changed from 25/75 to 75/25 . They also used to publish the income from fuel sales. This one would have expected to have increased by a significantly higher proportion year on year. Not so the actual fuel sales dropped year on year. There is the possibility that secret bunkering was going on but I would suggest the majority of boats were being bought as cheap holiday homes with a fantastic view of the Snowdonia Mountain range and Cardigan bay never to leave their berths all year. (Oh electricity used to be unmetered and in on the berth price!).
!

Why on earth do people always regard marina operators as money grabbing just because they charge a rent which one does not want to pay ( but some do)
Local authorities have to show to the rate payers a return & if you were someone needing care & had to have care service cut while someone enjoyed having a large expensive MOBO on a marina for peanuts do you not feel that , as a rate payer, you might just feel a bit miffed. Do you really want to be subsidised by the disabled 30 year old with a life so miserable that suicide sometimes seems the only option?
You might not realise it but commercial enterprises are not there for your benefit. They are there for the benefit of the shareholders of the company. How they benefit that company may reflect on how they treat the consumer & society at large, but the consumer & society just votes with his/her feet. end of.

Furthermore I ask why should people object if an owner chooses not to take a boat out every weekend. Just because they leave the boat in the marina does not mean that they do not pay the marina fee. Yes I know that there are the few but the marinas generally deal with those!!. If someone chooses just to come & sit on the boat, chat to a social group around them or admire the view that is their choice & is not ours to question -. Or is it - as some seem to think it is? Just because you want to buy a boat to swan around the sea does not mean that others have to.

 

[Zing]

Interesting to see the 10 year changes in the Sport England report. These are the big changes: Squash down a third. Athletics up nearly double. Mountaineering up 50% Bowling down a third. Swimming down a third.

Sorry, I can't make sense of all this except to explain the changes are no more than changes in fashion. Like the tide, it comes and goes.

I'd also like to know what Sport England are up to by funding angling with our money. Sat on your rear for hours on end a sport? Maybe it is a sport if it is competitive? Bah, they'll be funding tiddlywinks next.