Seajet
...
I'm sorry to say that dinghies V cruisers is not unfamiliar to me.
I find it particularly galling as I do both, but whenever I'm on my cruiser I get treated at best patronisingly and at worst with downright rudeness from the dinghy lot.
The situation has improved a lot lately though with the expiry of the local agitators.
At my club there have long been deliberate moves to get both camps sailing together, for instance there's a weekend when dinghies and cruisers sail to Bembridge then the dinghy folk crash out on the cruisers, this works well.
After damage to cruisers, dinghy races are kept well away from the moorings but unfortunately this message hasn't been acknowledged by the local dinghy sailing school, or windsurfers for that matter; when the latter first appeared the cruisers suddenly gained scratches and scores just above waterline level...
Dinghy sailors seem to love factions, I've been at clubs where different classes don't talk much to each other, and I have been given quite a lot of stick over the years for having performance boats but wanting to ' cruise ' at high speeds where I want to go, not round in circles on some poxy course !
Dinghy sailors never seem to catch on that cruiser owners have often ' been there, done that '; though I suppose with the modern trend of novice cruiser owners starting with something the size of the Cutty Sark - and IMO missing out a lot of skillset learning - maybe that's a thing of the past, it would partly explain the decline in dinghy sailing.
I find it particularly galling as I do both, but whenever I'm on my cruiser I get treated at best patronisingly and at worst with downright rudeness from the dinghy lot.
The situation has improved a lot lately though with the expiry of the local agitators.
At my club there have long been deliberate moves to get both camps sailing together, for instance there's a weekend when dinghies and cruisers sail to Bembridge then the dinghy folk crash out on the cruisers, this works well.
After damage to cruisers, dinghy races are kept well away from the moorings but unfortunately this message hasn't been acknowledged by the local dinghy sailing school, or windsurfers for that matter; when the latter first appeared the cruisers suddenly gained scratches and scores just above waterline level...
Dinghy sailors seem to love factions, I've been at clubs where different classes don't talk much to each other, and I have been given quite a lot of stick over the years for having performance boats but wanting to ' cruise ' at high speeds where I want to go, not round in circles on some poxy course !
Dinghy sailors never seem to catch on that cruiser owners have often ' been there, done that '; though I suppose with the modern trend of novice cruiser owners starting with something the size of the Cutty Sark - and IMO missing out a lot of skillset learning - maybe that's a thing of the past, it would partly explain the decline in dinghy sailing.
