sailing clubs

[Birdseye]

I get the impression that fewer and fewer sailors are active members of sailing clubs, perhaps a consequence of more and more marina based boats.

Are you a club member? Do you have a club mooring?

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[qsiv]

An interesting observation. I suspect it has truth, also more people own boats, so fewer people looking for positions as casual crew.

OTOH one of our local clubs has what is reputed to be amongst the largest membership in the entire UK, so it may not be all bad.

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[castaway]

I suspect that if sailing clubs had access to more moorings, they would attract more members.

For people like myself who live quite a way from the coast, a sailing club with no moorings, is about as much good as a golf club with no greens.

Regds Nick

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.yachtsite.co.uk/fairweather>http://www.yachtsite.co.uk/fairweather</A>

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[SteveA]

I have to disagree.

Why should a club provide moorings?

I am involved with our local club and find it very useful - both socially and nautically.

There is a good club house for a cheap drink and members can haul out for nothing!

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[LadyInBed]

I used to belong to the Royal Dorset and joined because of the availability of moorings and also I thought that I would gain valuable local knowlage. This wasn't the case, the moorings were so far from the club that it was split into bar members and sailing members.

When I moved to another area and moved mooring, I enquired at the local club about membership. The fees were prohibitively high, they had no bar and I would have to be proposed and seconded, and they said they had a waiting list to join!

I didn't persue it.

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[GeorgeP]

Why join a club?

Racing (dinghies or yachts)
Crewing opportunities
Bar (cheap or otherwise)
Social/make friends
To learn from others
Facilities (moorings, yard, boat lift, dry boat storage, all-tide access, changing rooms, etc)

Some of these cost more than others. My pontoon berth costs a fraction of the same in a commerical marina, because the club owns the assets. Not surprisingly, it is difficult to join, and there are many who want to. OK for me, because I am on the inside.

People want to join clubs if they get something out of it. If the club can't give them what they need, then they won't join. If it has what they want but are full, then the club can't take them. It seems to me that the growth area is larger yachts, as people generally have more money. So we are all chasing the same limited resources. So more will take their yachts to a commercial marina.

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[ThomasHome]

I loooked at joining the sailing club at our marina a couple of weeks ago, the bar was ok and the food was pretty good value, I rang them up to enquire about membership, appart from the usual proposel, we had to have an interview - I guess to make sure that we could make the grade, seemed a bit formal to me and they had made me feel pretty small on the phone already. The cost finaly put us off as then they wanted nearly £500 to join! my last club was just short of £100 pa.
I looked throught the events they organised and it didn't seem worth it.

Maybe I'm tight, but the yearly cost of keeping a boat is high enouigh without adding an extra few hundred quid on club membership.

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[Jools_of_Top_Cat]

I live 2 hours from boat. Try to travel on Friday evening, so that is out, prefer to be sailing Saturday or at least somewhere else on Saturday night. Driving home Sunday so can't drink then, that makes the £90.00 per person charge to join Pwllheli club a very expensive pint for the odd time we would use it. I do not race, I think it is time the clubs caught on and offered a much cheaper alternative to the very occassional users.

Why do they have to charge, the only facility I would want is the bar, I can do that for free in a pub in the town.

More Rip Off for boating people I suspect.

Rant over!

<hr width=100% size=1><font color=blue> Julian </font color=blue>

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[nodder]

Just show the other side of the coin, my local club, has a very active social side , cheap booze ,regular club sailing and training, both cruiser and dinghy, no interviews to join, full membership £40/year, out of port membership £20,family for £55 ( my wife myself and two kids).

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[escape]

Hi Jools,
I have just joined PSC for the first time having been a member at Holyhead.
I have been made to feel very welcome to a new sailing fraternity.
Of course I would probably get to meet many of the members and others in the marina over the years but by being a member, using the bar etc I have got to know many more people in the last three months than the whole of last season.
I'm still a member despite an incident that could have seen me blackballed for life.My 6yr old daughter and a new friend (yes it works for her too) decided to read some of the books in the library, unfortunately they read them on the floor and left them there when finished. A club official saw the books scatered and thought the room had been vandalised.
Fortunately when approached my daughter apologised and explained.
A week later Dave (Steward ?) came to me to explain what had happened,not as a reprimand but to avoid me any embaressment should someone accuse my daughter of vandalism,as I would have the facts.
So, good guiness, good company, good simple food,
good stories, what more do you want for £1.73 a week.

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[castaway]

Hi Steve,

I think that that is my point.. If I lived near the boat/club (as I thinkyou do) I would make use of a Club for the social side of things but as it is I cant imagin mooring my boat in one place and then jumping in the car to have a beer in the club bar somewhere else.

I once joined Marchwood as I was advised that I would be OK for a mooring ( by a club official). I handed over my joining fee and years subs.. when i broached the subect of a mooring with (I think) the Bosun he laughed and said I would be on the waiting list for years witha 5ft draft fin keel... total waste of money and time.. and that was the last time I bothered going there. Had I lived on the western side of Southhampton water I would have used the facilities of what looked like a nice Club but for me it was useless and I felt a bit misled. (and poorer) by the experience.

All best Nick

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[petery]

With the characters, scandals, arguments, expulsions, 'management committee' interventions plus, of course, lots of helpful advice from experienced sailors on this forum - its only the beer and the mini-skirt of our bar maid that makes me retain membership of my (non virtual) club!

... is there a forum burgee?

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[hlb]

Of course theres a forum burgee. Why you not got one yet??

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Haydn

 

[tcm]

I'm very much in favour of sailing clubs, to keep the crew in order and bash anything that gets jammed.

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[Twister_Ken]

No need for a sailing club to achieve that, TCM. It's what winch handles are for.

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[bedouin]

No, No, No

A winch handle is an expensive piece of precision engineering and should definitely not be used for hitting the crew over the head - it is much better to have a dedicated club for than

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[MADFISH]

Sorry to hear about your experiance at MYC. I believe the info they gave you was innaccurate. Prehaps you weren't speaking to the right person. There is a waiting list for some moorings but in my experiance most boats can be accomadated on tempory moorings (ie someone elses who is not launching that year) or at cracknore, just downstreem.

I found the club most unfriendly and abrupt when I first joined but once I got to know a few people it was much easier. It is also as cheap as chips! (Top bar also)!

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[Twister_Ken]

> expensive piece of precision engineering <

Not my 'Star of Lewmar' special. Inherited with the boat it seems to be cast in solid brass, and weighs in at club hammer levels.

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[tcm]

i though winch handles were designed to test the clarity of seawater.

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[Mirelle]

Yes, but I think there is a misunderstanding here

I do belong to a Club. Actually I belong to two.

One is in the City of London; if has no moorings, dinghy pontoon, etc but it does have a club house, social evenings, lectures, a restaurant and sleeping cabins.

The other is on the river where I keep my boat on her mooring; it has a couple of drying moorings, a dinghy pontoon, changing rooms and an active racing dinghy fleet.

I think that both are worth while.

But, surely, very few Clubs have ever had moorings for their members?

Most clubs seem to have been founded for one or more of the following reasons:

1. To provide racing, in dinghies or keelboats, for people who live fairly close by.

2. Very important; for people who live near or far, particularly the latter, to provide somewhere safe to keep the dinghy, oars and for the last seventy years or so the outboard motor and somewhere to shower, wait for crew to turn up, have a social drink, get warmed up, fill the water cans, etc.

I think it is the secure place to keep the dinghy that counts, not the mooring, which is often either allocated by a Fairways Committee or rented out by a local yard.

I agree that if you keep a boat in a marina you might not belong to a Club.

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