Is sailing an exclusive sport?

[l'escargot]

Hmm I take all your points, I spose people just have different priorities, some have holidays others have boats.

Thanks for clearing the mists

That is the main reason - priorities.

I have work colleagues who have asked me how come I can afford a "yacht" and they can't? (They also wonder how my daughter was privately educated up to middle school and how I have private medical care). Easy - they and their partners have expensive cars which they change every 2 years and they have at least 2 foreign holidays each year. I never pay more than £400 for a car and have had 3 foreign holidays in the last 25 years.

You can buy a boat for less than the cost of a two year old family saloon and keep it for less than the cost of a foreign holiday each year.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

It seems to me (I am on the South Wales coast, cardiff specifically) that it would cost more, a lot more just to put the thing in the water for any length of time. There is no where along my immediate bit of coast line that would allow me to justify keeping the boat due to the cost involved.

.

Nonsense. Moorings at NUSC some 20 miles away are effectively free along with club membership at maybe £180 pa and if you go a few miles further to Chepstow, they were £1 per foot per annum plus club membership of maybe £30. In between you and these two clubs there are other places equally cheap. Sure you have to join a club and put some work in but surprise surprise, you wont find anyone making a living out of running a free commerical marina. If you want marina services you have to pay for it.

In Britain today, "financially comfortable" isnt buying a 20 to 25 footer second hand. Thats very much the bottom of the yachting market - the typical new boat sale now being something like 35ft, so thats what the yachting press mostly write for.

 

[tcm]

ownership of an actual mountain isn't required for fellwalking. Likewise sailing/boating - you don't need to buy the thing.

 

[Bosun Higgs]

And sailing isnt in any way "exclusive" since that means it excludes certain people. It doesn't - it's a minority sport.

And for the benefit of Photodog, our club has fair numbers of ethnic minority kids of both sexes sailing dinghies, and a large proportion of working class members. We've even got the odd millionaire. One of my other clubs has a couple of dustmen. So to characterise us as middle class and white is simply wrong

 

[SAWDOC]

Beware gripe approaching!

I am a gent of reasonable means and comfortable lifestyle. There has been much said of sailing as a sport being available to everyone recently, so I thought I would put my case forward to gauge peoples opinons.

I could quite happily afford to buy a 20 - 25 ft yacht of choice, admittedly 2nd hand but never the less the point being that this is possible. My problem comes in keeping it somewhere.

It seems to me (I am on the South Wales coast, cardiff specifically) that it would cost more, a lot more just to put the thing in the water for any length of time. There is no where along my immediate bit of coast line that would allow me to justify keeping the boat due to the cost involved.

I have a small 12ft dinghy which I sail on a reservoir and pay £100 pa for the privelage, which given the current climate is essentially dead money.

So where in all this is the boat ownership fable as pressed by the yachtie journo's available to average Joe?

Ok rant over what do people think.

Hi Alastair,

I fit your own description. I bought a 26 foot boat five years ago. I keep her on a swinging mooring and use a hard dinghy and O/b to taxi the family crew on and off. No great expense, and provided one is as careful as one should be, no great bother.
Having sailed dinghys for years I was a little nervous of the move to a crusier but it is one of the best things we have done. It isn't all about money - it is really about what you want to do with your life. Don't just dream it - live it!! Good luck.

 

[KREW2]

ownership of an actual mountain isn't required for fellwalking. Likewise sailing/boating - you don't need to buy the thing.

F8ck me! and I thought you owned the Atlantic.

 

[Rum_Pirate]

Is sailing an exclusive sport?


Yes, to 'sail' propelled craft.

 

[V1701]

I think it's pretty exclusive in that there aren't too many working class/poor kids introduced to it at an early age and later in life they aren't drawn to it because of it's image as a rich man's pastime, not realising it can be done cheaply. And of course it's a very male pastime, though that's changing slowly presumably? I always hesitate to use the word "yacht" and normally go for "boat", result of a poor working class background?
As for those who bemoan the ten bob millionaires or chavs with cash who've got a boat, well aren't the loud, offensive hoorays just as bad?

 

[David_Jersey]

A Sport?? Does that mean I can enter 2012

Buy the boat that fits around a cheap mooring, and accept the compromises that go with that (both boat and mooring)............or pay not to.

It's all choices.

 

[cimo]

That is the main reason - priorities.

I have work colleagues who have asked me how come I can afford a "yacht" and they can't? (They also wonder how my daughter was privately educated up to middle school and how I have private medical care). Easy - they and their partners have expensive cars which they change every 2 years and they have at least 2 foreign holidays each year. I never pay more than £400 for a car and have had 3 foreign holidays in the last 25 years.

You can buy a boat for less than the cost of a two year old family saloon and keep it for less than the cost of a foreign holiday each year.

This seems to be the way, certainly with myself and all other skippers I know. Go for it, if you think boat ownership will bring you pleasure. Should it turn out that its burning a hole, you'll find you'll become very creative (and practicle) in finding ways to reduce costs.

Is sailing exclusive? - darn right - it appears to attract the craziest people I know!

 

[Jamesuk]

JOIN THE CLUB - if you have money to spend on life do it.

As for being exclusive, I would agree with it being a minority hobbie and sport. Anyone with the right attitude to go sailing can go sailing.

Just BEFORE you buy the BOAT, do your Yachtmaster Theory & Day skipper, using other boats and learning from others will guide you to the right choice of boat or at least open your mind to things you may not have thought of (abit like YBW.com) - just my opinion.

check out www.Latesail.com too

 

[Robin]

I think it's pretty exclusive in that there aren't too many working class/poor kids introduced to it at an early age and later in life they aren't drawn to it because of it's image as a rich man's pastime, not realising it can be done cheaply. And of course it's a very male pastime, though that's changing slowly presumably? I always hesitate to use the word "yacht" and normally go for "boat", result of a poor working class background?
As for those who bemoan the ten bob millionaires or chavs with cash who've got a boat, well aren't the loud, offensive hoorays just as bad?

Well I've been boating since I built a PBK canoe from a kit when about 14, then via the 1962 Tall Ships Race when Ocean Youth Club offered a few places to my school which I went on with two others. Other crew were also from local schools and I might add we were inland about as far from the sea as you can get. I built another 11ft boat from bare plans for fishing after that, then sold it to buy a secondhand Enterprise sailing dinghy. Money for all this didn't come from rich family but from two paper rounds and later weekend and evening jobs in garages flogging petrol. I had a succession of dinghies which I raced and sold on as race winners, always at a profit. My last dinghy was sold for more than I paid for my first sailing cruiser, it cost £750. I bought many others after that and always sold at a better price than I paid, TLC and hours of 'free' labour. In those days my work colleagues spent money on smartening up their house, then bought better houses and took foreign holidays. I had cheap old cars, kept the same house and spent little on it. Our current house is about national average but our last boat was a very nice 41 footer sold just last month.

I started with really cheap moorings which only saw water for an hour or so near HWs. Our first sailing club was a DIY minded one, moorings laid and maintained by members, cheap moorings and cheap lay up ashore. The biggest boats back then were 26ft but many still sail plywood Silhouettes or like me a 21ft Debutante.

We later moved to another Yacht Club, real posh, blue defaced ensign stuff nearly 2,500 members including Olympic medal winners, and later even built a club marina where we had a berth from day one.

Our posh Yacht Club had a Lady Commodore for some time. Members are from ALL backgrounds. If you ask somebody what 'class' they are they might answer Cadets, Toppers, X-Boat, Enterprise, RS, Dart Cat or the like or as Cruiser or Racer (right up to Class 1 hotshots) or even powerboat. Lots of members are crew members rather than boat owners.

So is boating exclusive? You bet it is. It is exclusive to all who really really want to do it. Dreamers need not apply.

 

[snowleopard]

What's "rich"?

I once told a bloke that i sailed and he accused me of being rich, capitalist, you name it. Then I pointed out the price of the 2nd hand dinghy I sailed, plus a year's subs at the sailing club cost a lot less than a season ticket to watch the local football team. There was no shifting his opinion.

 

[john_morris_uk]

I spose people just have different priorities, some have holidays others have boats.

That's the way it is in our family. We don't usually even think of taking a holiday abroad as a family (long haul or europe) as the money goes on the boat and its maintenance and our enjoyment of sailing.

If you ask the average family what they really spend on holidays (even in europe) it often adds up to thousands and that makes our sailing look cheap.

 

[Kelpie]

So, I think it is pretty silly and disengenuous to suggest that somehow this is not a exclusive sport/leisure activity. I suspect that the only sport MORE exclusive is Polo.

Now... the real question.... CAN ANYONE HERE HONESTLY SAY THEY WOULD LIKE IT ANY OTHER WAY?

hmmm... not I. I love the exclusive nature of sailing. If I wanted to do something inclusive... I would go down to the high street on a saturday and shop at TKMax... why would I want EVEN MORE of the hoi poloi polluting my favorite anchorage, or running up and down my pontoon.

When people ask what I do for fun... i am proud of the fact that I have some skills that most people consider pretty impressive and scary...

When that little gate on the marina Swishes shut behind me... I am getting away from the scrotes and the crowds and shouty and dirty and common oiks.

So, Exclusive??? YES! and THANK GOD!

I have to disagree with you.
I am embaressed by the reputation that yachting has amongst the general public. I am completely against the idea of allowing the price of everything to get so high that only a 'select few' can afford to participate. Where I live there is really little need to keep numbers down anyway, but more than that I think that using the ability to pay as the sole criterion is ridiculous.
From my own experience, I can observe a direct correlation between the cost of a boat and how much use it gets. That is, the biggest and shiniest yachts are the ones which never leave their berths. At the other end of the scale, we have two local Wayfarer dinghies which sail on almost every opportuniy- several times a week in the summer; five times already this year. One is owned by a school kid who bought it using money saved up working on a fishing boat; the other is mine.

We are lucky to have no mooring fees up here, but change is coming, and when fees are introduced it will be quite frustrating that those most able to pay them are the people who don't even seem to use their boats.

 

[Fascadale]

£500 car

£10,000 boat

Fortunately the majority choose to spend their dosh on cars

 

[AlistairM]

Oopps Sorry

Didnt mean to stir up a hornets nest.

I realise its a matter of priorities and need to accept my best alternative may not be the nearest.

I also have the added complication of a yound family (1 and 4) and a wife who does not share the same mindset, this probably being my biggest problem.

Still all that aside I am very greatfull for your comments and take all the points made.

 

[webcraft]

.
Try to get your wife interested - it will make your life so much easier. And get your kids an Oppy to sail.

A beach holiday with some sailing is often suggested as a way to get reluctant partners/kids involved. Do some courses and sail on OPs boats and then maybe a warm water flotilla holiday. In your position this might be a better long term investment than a boat right now. If you are battling other peoples priorities all the time it will never be easy.

- W

 

[fergie_mac66]

perhaps you could join a club If you get to know a few people perhaps swmbo might gain a bit of interest if she sees some of the more social aspects of boaty life children have a lot of fun round boats.

http://www.cardiffyachtclub.org/sailing.htm

http://www.cbyc.co.uk/theclub.html

Occasionally you might get to know of crewing opportunities during which
you might get some experience

 

[andymcp]

I would agree wholeheartedly you should go on a flotilla holiday; ideal for young kids, warm weather, no tides, securely tied up every night, lead crew to take away the stress. That was what we did for our first year yacht sailing, with 1-year old on board in Greece. The sailing was maybe 4 hours a day made up of 2hrs in the morning and 2hrs in the afternoon after a very long lunch stop, leaving the rest of the day for swimming, exploring, eating, enjoying the holiday.

Much as some people avoid flotillas, I found them to be ideal as a gentle introduction for all concerned to a life on board, but with an escape ashore every day.

Is it exclusive? Not really. We picked our time of year to suit and have had holidays for a week for 2 of us at £250 each (flights, boat and transfers included) for exclusive use of a boat. With kids the age you describe, the Sailing Holidays unconverted Jags are ideal, will look after you brilliantly, are hugely sociable and get to all the same places as the larger, dearer boats. And I would guess that, like for like, they won't cost any more than an average beach holiday for the same family.