"Roy Dunster Letter - Future of Sailing in South Africa"

I commend Roy for putting pen to paper and voicing his concerns, and those of the majority of sailors, regarding the future of sailing in SA.

As Roy says in his letter, (published on the Smoothsailing web site in May) he raises more questions than provides answers. One fact comes through very strongly however, SAS has made very little difference, in the past few years.

There are no doubt reasons for this, and I do not for a moment knock the people who "are" SAS at present or in the past. Outside influences have and will override their best intentions until a miracle panacea is found for sailing.

Reading John Levin's report, which was circulated to Clubs this past month, SAS is still hamstrung by a lack of financial resources. No organisation can hope to operate without resources, and SAS is no different. John also suggests that the actual number of sailors in South Africa are only 25% of that originally believed. I assume that this deduction is made from the "returns" from Clubs., i.e. SAS levies. Since receiving John's report, I also received an emailed memo from Jimmy Melville, in Durban, pertaining to the 2002/3 SAS levy, and an interesting example formula of how Clubs should calculate what to charge their members based on their respective membership subscriptions. I was shocked to see that according to Jimmy's calculations, or to be more accurate, application of the formula, my Club has possibly been "undercharging" SAS Levies since 1998! According to Jimmy, the SAS Levy of R85.50 relates to an "Ordinary" membership, i.e., an Individual Membership. It follows that a Full Family Membership, which costs more in terms of Subscription, will attract a correspondingly higher SAS Levy. The problem we have at our Club is that we used the Full Family Membership as the "benchmark", resulting in the Individual Member being charged less! According to the minutes of our Club's General Committee of 1998, the instructions of "how to calculate" the Levy, came from no other source but SAS itself. (or whatever it was called in those days). The result, (again if Jimmy is correct), is that for 4 years we have been collecting decidedly less than we should have. What this means, is that if my Club has it wrong, then so do many other Clubs. The net result is an underfinanced SAS! It is important to state that this is an honest mistake - not a campaign to "do" SAS out of income. If we calculate how much may have been lost or under-recovered over a four year period, and multiply it by, say, 20 Clubs all in the same boat, then we have stumbled onto something really big.

However, the problem does not stop there. If we apply the formula given as per Jimmy's email, the "new" SAS Levy will constitute no less that 35% of the cost of a Full Family Membership at my Club. This is totally disproportionate in terms of value. SAS has been a "hard sell" for a number of years, and will continue to be as long as there is a lack of delivery. Trouble is, there will be a lack of delivery for as long as they are under-financed. It's that age old "Chicken or the Egg" problem. In all honesty, it is my experience that it will be impossible to collect this amount from the vast majority of our members without a revamp of the current situation.

So, here we are, back at square one.

Getting back to Roy's letter - he mentions that Cricket and Rugby "make money" and as a result are able to fund the growth of their respective sports. Roy is wrong here. Neither Cricket, nor Rugby, generates profit. Television generates profit. Television has taken over Sport. Sporting Codes are no longer driven by the sport itself - they are driven by what the huge Television moguls need to boost viewership and as a result, advertising income. It's as simple as that. Five Day Cricket Tests are a washout in terms of spectators… One Day Internationals do ok., but in themselves are insufficient to sustain the coffers, but the One Day games are big TV drawcards and the Unions make their cash by selling the rights. Same as Rugby, the Super 12 is totally TV driven. Even "tests" are going that way - not since 1998 has a South African rugby stadium been "sold out" for a Test. However SARFU , the national body, is cash-flush as a result of TV rights. What happened to the Currie Cup? Super 12 usurped it, and that was supposed to be the toughest and most respected tournament in World Rugby only 7 years ago. Killed off because of TV.

How does this help sailing? Well it doesn't, because it's also happening to sailing. The "round the world" races are carefully structured to meet TV requirements. They are funded by TV rights. Our own DSTV pay for such rights. What do they do for South African sailing events? Very little indeed. I watched a show on CNN the other evening and they were introducing a brand new catamaran class, 20 footers I think, designed and built especially for TV. How can we compete? We can not compete unless we join them. The big question is, do we want to join them, and if so, can we afford to? My personal feelings are negative, but if we are to keep up with international trends we had better think along those lines. The important aspect here is not to sell the "heart" of sailing to the highest bidder. Look at Rugby…. The Sharks (Pty) Ltd may be making a few rand through it's share in TV rights, but go to, say, Glenwood Old Boys Club and have a look at the state of neglect it is in. A once powerful and proud Club. They simply get too little assistance from Big Brother. If that was to happen to sailing, well, we would be going "backwards" not forwards.

The real danger in sailing going professional is that the Clubs will lose control. As professionalism grows, so Clubs will make way for specialised "classes" - just like overseas, and only the Rock Stars will benefit. International and National Regattas could be staged and run by Professional Companies, not Classes. Believe me, if we think the cost of sailing is high now, just wait until this happens and salaries and wages have to be met from the income generated by Regattas. That said, I believe that the business sector will only be interested in the classes which can and will attract TV coverage. This means that the classes which are not flashy enough, will stagnate through a lack of finance and marketing- much like we are experiencing today.

It can be a different story, and I am talking now of the French experience. France has ploughed massive funding into yachting. Their development program is one of the most progressive in the world, but they have the Government backing and financial clout behind them. We in South Africa will never achieve this.

Conclusions:
There is no doubt in my mind that sailing in this country is going to move in two directions. Professional and Amateur. I believe that if we are clever enough to identify the best of what these two sectors have to offer, and harness and control it in the interests of sailing, then we will succeed. To pay too much attention to the big money, will result in the Amateur sector suffering much like club rugby has.

I believe that SAS needs a few good people on the pay-roll, on a National level, backed by good regional officials, overseen by perhaps a group of trustee's. The salaried SAS people need not be sailors of an international or even national ability - they need good business brains, enthusiasm and PR skills. This could be a good starting point. Of course, this brings us back to financing, and we know that SAS do not have the budget at present. However, if we go ahead and set up the structures, SAS could start generating income, substantial income, within months. SAS could bring the "TV Classes" to South Africa, start our own such classes, negotiate sponsors and TV rights, divert the world's sailing attention to our shores instead of standing back watching other countries get all the kudos. SAS should campaign to get sole hosting and event management rights back from the private company located in Cape Town that monopolises all the "Cape stop-overs" at present. These rights will bring in good money, and it puts SAS on the map. All it takes is expertise, and this is available to SAS.

SAS, through the regional officials, needs to conduct accurate surveys to ascertain the state of sailing, in each region. (Much like Ant Stewart started doing). Let's look at our strengths, our weakness, possible avenues of income, and then structure a business plan driven by the Regions on the amateur side, and Nationally at a professional level.

In my opinion, the sport of Sailing, is too inward looking. We need to fight in order to get representation in national sport magazines, such as Sports Illustrated. Perhaps there is some way that Richard Crockett could negotiate such a deal without endangering his own interests. We really need to get the message out there.

Sailing needs to be marketed as "hip" and "cool", at school level. Schools themselves do not have the infrastructure to facilitate this. The Regions should be appointing school districts to clubs, and clubs should be taking on the responsibility of marketing sailing to these schools. Whilst the Oppie Class is a well organised and funded class, there does not seem to be any suitable class available for the intermediates. This is perhaps where one of the "TV Classes" could be utilised, in conjunction with the Dabbies etc. Sailing needs a flashy, fast and "cool" Class to attract the Teens and Students.

So in short, Sailing needs to be driven by the Clubs, Classes and Regions. Leave the professional bit up to SAS. However SAS needs to be completely made-over before it could hope to operate on a Professional footing, and it will need the committed support of every Region in order to succeed.

A big "ask", but the alternative is to stumble along until the options available to us now are taken away from us and we lose control of our own sport.

Regards
Dave Claxton