What planet is he off.......?

bilbobaggins

bilbobaggins

N/A
Joined
12 Feb 2005
Messages
9,993
Location
Grey Havens Marina - Elves pontoon
Visit site
Yesterday the latest copy of the MAIB's Digest thumped through the letterbox. What do you make of this.....?

[ QUOTE ]
"Around half a century ago, the people who went to sea for recreation tended to be wealthy, and usually owned either a ‘gentleman’s sailing yacht’ or a ‘gentleman’s motor yacht. They often had paid hands to help with the more physical tasks….

[/ QUOTE ]

Maurice Griffiths' 'Yachting on a Small Income' enjoyed its best sales around half a century ago, and I'm sure he would not have recognised the above. Neither would, I imagine, Des Sleightholme, Andrew Bray, Geoff Pack or even the 'Peter Pan' among them, young James Jermain!

My copy of YM's '100 Years of Yachting' suggests otherwise....



YM100.jpg



The eedjit who wrote this twaddle went on....

[ QUOTE ]
….Couple this with the fact that the real cost of boating is now much less than it ever was….

[/ QUOTE ]

I can only imagine that the RNLI's Sea Safety Manager sails on different seas to thee and me, has not introduced his wallet to MDL, The Hamble or Salcombe in the last half-century, or is the principal beneficiary of a significant sailing trust fund!

He concludes with.....

[ QUOTE ]
"….the theory of unconscious incompetence says that you only know what you know."

[/ QUOTE ]

Quite!


/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
Unlike your good self, I wasn't sailing half a century ago, but maybe the writer has a point. I believe that recreational sailing is a pastime undertaken by people with disposable income that is left after the usual necessities of life. That the volume of boats on the water is much greater than 50 years ago, perhaps indicates, amongst other things, that there are a greater number of people with the requisite level of disposable income, and that, the relative cost of sailing is less.

Apart from relative costs and disposable income, how else would you explain the greater numbers, and the vast proportion of new boats of more than 10m being sold?
 
All around us there are those who rely on the power of assertion who get people to accept outright lies. It only takes a proportion of readers/listeners to believe what's said for the statment to become "truth".

In fact, I believe that sailing has become much more available to more people as yacht design and manufacture has "advanced"". In 1971 my £2300 got me a 22ft Westerly while a 30ft Longbow was way out of reach at £5000. Putting that into today's money, it's astonishing what one can buy now for £60,000 in terms of accommodation and performance, and cheap moorings still exist in many places.
 
If the digest had said 'before the Second World War . . .' it would have been correct.

After that war, sea sailing as a leisure activity was moribund, the country was broke. Ex 'gentlemen's yachts' were available for peanuts due to the high cost of maintaining them. Some were bought by clubs and co-operatives which laboured to maintain and run them for the ability to sail 'for free'. Hoshi and Provident, two great old gaffers on which I sailed, were such yachts, bought around 1951 by what became the Island Cruising Club. Such clubs brought about a revolution in the accessibility of sailing - making it into a cheap everyman's sport, run and organised by amateurs.

Paid hands? They didn't return in UK until the wealth did, early 60's. I remember racing in a sister ship against Ted Heath's SS34 and always losing to him. I blamed that, not on my incompetence (the real cause), but on his professional crews. So paid hands were back by then. Since then professional sailing has moved in full time at all levels.

As you hint, Bilbo, that quote came from another planet.
 
Hi
What he says would very likely have been true before WW2 but not really true for the 50s. I think a real change in the 50s was the introduction if GRP and artificial fibre sails etc. I guess the relative cost of the boats themselves has gone down over time. Likewise maintainance effort has gone down. This has resulted in many more boats and sadly a lot of pressure on moorings with massive price increases in that area. It is possible to buy a good second hand boat for the cost of 3 or 4 years of marina moorings.
 
I was sailing 50 yrs ago in a gaff rigged pram dinghy that my dad used to push down the road to the beach on a trolley made from an old pram. Don’t remember any paid crew though!!
/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
I am just reading a book I got from ebay - Sailing by Major-General HJK Bamfield, 1949. He emphasises the cost cutting to be had running a boat, but then goes on to discuss the reasonable cost of paid Crew or the services of a Boatman to look after the boat. 3-4 pounds a week with a new crew clothing outfit each season.

It must be cheaper, as neer-do-wells like me can scrape the loot together to keep sailing each year.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I was sailing 50 yrs ago in a gaff rigged pram dinghy that my dad used to push down the road to the beach on a trolley made from an old pram. Don’t remember any paid crew though!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Almost exact ditto - exepty for gaff read gunter, sea read lake and beach read busy main road (three cars a day back then).

Boats are relatively cheaper now than then. Moorings? - probably not.
 
Jim, as you said, clubs were able to buy old boats cheaply in the 50s because of the high cost of maintenance ie that the ongoing costs of personal ownership were too onerous for many. That personal boat ownership is significantly greater today would suggest to me that the relative costs are less, and that the writer's assertion that "the real cost of boating is now much less than it ever was" is probably correct.
 
[ QUOTE ]
In 1971 my £2300 got me a 22ft Westerly while a 30ft Longbow was way out of reach at £5000. Putting that into today's money, it's astonishing what one can buy now for £60,000

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, I see what you are saying but 1971's £2300 is only worth £22,468.24 in today's money. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppoweruk/
 
Yes, but you can't make exact comparisons without taking disposable income into account. A telly cost about £60 at the same time and two weeks skiing about £40.
 
Sgeir, The real cost of boating in the 50's was your labour. Outside labour was very hard to find and organise immediately post war - people were to busy re-building.

I suppose the point is that boating is much more accessible now, whether due to us all being much better off, or whether due to sailing costing less, doesn't really matter. As you say, it's the relation between cost and cash available that matters.
 
Read Arthur Ransome's "Coot Club" for a description of boys sailing an old tub in the 1930s on their pocket money.
Boating used to be much cheaper, before mooring fees, insurance and regulations were invented.
 
[ QUOTE ]
I believe that recreational sailing is a pastime undertaken by people with disposable income that is left after the usual necessities of life. That the volume of boats on the water is much greater than 50 years ago, perhaps indicates, amongst other things, that there are a greater number of people with the requisite level of disposable income, and that, the relative cost of sailing is less.

Apart from relative costs and disposable income, how else would you explain the greater numbers, and the vast proportion of new boats of more than 10m being sold?

[/ QUOTE ]

Donald

I believe that relative cost - for what is available are much lower.

There may not have been so many boats around 50 years ago, but they were used more.

Disposable income now means that many boats can sit securely in marinas, almost doubling for weekend cottages, rarely moving.

In the past where swining moorings were the norm owners (or their paid hands) would be out and about checking and/or using the boats, one good reason is that more often than not they lived locally.

Donald
 
Wonderful stories from Mr Ransom, firing many young imaginations,but it occurs to me that all of us my well now be regarded as "Hullabaloos" whilst we regard the younger generation in rotting tubs as potential "Scrotes".

Any truth in that?
 
[ QUOTE ]
it occurs to me that all of us my well now be regarded as "Hullabaloos" whilst we regard the younger generation in rotting tubs as potential "Scrotes".


[/ QUOTE ] You will know that you are a "Hullabaloo" when some young "Scrote" comes along and unties your mooring lines because you're obstructing a coot's nest. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
i don't have exact figures for 1971 but extrapolating back from 1976 for which I do have data, the rpi index then was 38.0 and is now 201.6 so a £60,000 boat isn't such good value?! I'm not even sure, on your figures, that even income ratios support any of anybody's arguments about having proportionately increased disposable income ...
 
I think it's always going to be a matter of opinion; I was really trying to say that comparing values over the years is very complex and will give different results if you are comparing necessities (many more expensive) and unnecessities (mostly cheaper)
 
I think the difference is that nowadays there are two groups of people owning boats:

Group A: Lots of spare disposable income so let's buy a boat. These people buy largish AWBs and often don't sail them all that much, using them as weekend retreats or status symbols.

Group B: Can't really afford it but mad about sailing so they manage to get some old tub afloat in spite of their lack of disposable income,possibly making great sacrifices to do so in terms of other consuner goodies that Group A take for granted. These people use their boats more and many make quite remarkable voyages.

There are maybe the same number or a bit more of the Group Bs as there were in the 50s, boating on the cheap - it has always been possible to boat on the cheap if you want to. GRP has made it a lot less time consuming as well. (Hooray!)

The difference is the huge increase in Group A - the 'new money' syndrome, where you no longer need to be a 'gentleman' to own a sizeable yacht. This is not necessarily a bad thing, although it is making it more expensive if anything for the budget boater because of pressure on mooring, berthing and storage.

So saying boating has become cheaper / more expensive is relatively meaningless . . . just more people with more money to spend, boating an obvious thing to spend it on and mass prodution available to cater for demand.

Does it really matter????
 
I agree. I started sailing 50 years ago (and never moved out of Group B!)
There have two big changes in our society in those 50 years which may be relevant: the easy availability of credit (As) and the increasing need to escape, if only for a brief period of peace, from the madhouse our society has become (B's)!
I don't mind the Group A's as long as they keep entertaning friends in marinas or on short day-trips between them (the modern idea of 'cruising' it seems).
Because that leaves the finest coasts and anchorages for the B's!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top