I was going to write a diatribe about money and funding and then suddenly I realised why sailing, or more specifically, yacht racing is dying.

We are trying to read too much into it. Constitutions, Ombudsmen, Exec committees, well that's all just great. But we're not talking America's Cup here, we're talking Sunday racing. I recall in the late 70's I used to arrive at the mole on Sunday morning and, as regular as the sunrise, there was a race offshore. And there were always 8 or more boats out there, Petersens, Montivideos, M&W's, Cox, Wade-Lehmann, Laidlaw, Tocknell, all of them different classes, all competing and it was fun.

Maybe I was protected from the officialdom because I wasn't an owner, just crew. There just never seemed to be any hassle, it just happened. There were no skipper's briefings or meetings or any such thing. We just got on the boat, went offshore, found the start line and raced.

Always a triangle, sausage, triangle with a weather start and a weather finish. Always at 10:00. Not like some centres that are too lazy to set a course and instead race around fixed harbour marks irrespective of whether it is a reach over the start or a spinnaker run over the finish line.

If we're serious about sailing surviving as a sport, forget about SAS for the moment. They should regulate the bigger picture, perhaps in the form of a Section 21 company and involve themselves in fundraising for the pure purpose of their own financial independence. If required, they must be funded by the membership like all the other "elitist" sports (flying, skydiving, water-skiing, to mention a few) until they can stand alone. I don't even know how much I contribute to being an SAS member so it is obviously not a sum to get nervous about.

Let the sailors get down to the business of sailing. The clubs need to facilitate this, not SAS. Let's also forget about "Today we're racing L26's". Let's talk about "There's the start line, if you want to cross it, feel free" (handicapping notwithstanding). Is it coincidence that, because the Wednesday evening racing is regular and organised, it enjoys strong support? I don't think so.

No level of management, promotion or marketing is ever going to get 55 000 people coming to watch a regatta that takes place somewhere between the shark nets and the horizon! We can't compare sailing with mass-attraction sports. Only once a J22 can be bought for the price of a leather football will you be able to compete and that's not likely to happen any time soon.

As it happens I live in Johannesburg and cannot be in Durban every Sunday to race but I'll bet that if there was a course laid every Sunday, guaranteed, and the start line was manned, guaranteed, at 10:00am, guaranteed, with an Olympic course, guaranteed, three boats would become five, then ten, as it used to be. And the cajoling and needling in the pub afterwards will stimulate other participants like it did back then.

Lets get back to basics.

Thank you

Andre Asselbergs

HOME