Perceptions.

[Guest]

Over the last few years the media and particularly the Yachting media have it seems to me been advocating that sailing is a professional sport which requires a billions of pounds of sponsorship. As an amateur I should not at be allowed to own a boat (Am I qualified to maintain it?)and should only been allowed to sail(to dangerous for an amateur) if I pay for it directly and have "professional" guidance.

Is this the reason why we have so many rules and regulations these days? Have those who take a profit from sailing like Sun sail, Challenge Ltd, RYA etc. Eggeg on by the yachting press got a secret agenda to banish the owner skipper who pays his way just off the sea?

 

[Mirelle]

Absolutely, utterly, correct. Trahison des Clercs

Symbol,

You have hit a very important nail squarely on the head.

Of course, many people like to make a living out of sailing, a sentiment we can all agree with, and they find that, the market being small, it is hard for them to do so. So, when an opportunity comes along to urge professional maintenance, professional tuition, sponsored racing, and come to that professional racing, they all leap happily onto the bandwagon.

The result is that our sport feels utterly different today to the way it felt from the start of the last centruy up to, say, the end of the 1970's, when it was, as so many yacht clubs testify by their names, a "Corinthian" sport.

Bet most of today's gigolo yacht jockeys* don't even know what that term means.

It is destroying our sport.

* L.F. Herreshoff ("Who?", they ask!) The Compleat Cruiser

 

[Guest]

Are you coming?

I applied to go to the festival off the sea on the line, I was worried because no entry fee was mentioned. Dreaded the papers coming through expecting an entry fee of hundreds of pounds. That's no it's free (if you're excepted)

it's not all bad!

 

[Rabbie]

Re: Are you coming?

I am!. Hope to find your boat there too. Look out for 'LUCY'. '98 was a great Festival, this one looks good too. Rab.