A Slump in Sailing?

by Tom Hubbell

Tom races a Thistle and was class president twice. He also sails a Laser and Snipe, and formerly raced a Morgan 27.

The US SAILING One-Design Class Council list-serve hosted a discussion about possible reasons for the slump in sailing. Specific concerns were raised about declines in attendance at major regattas experienced in many classes. What follows is just my opinion. Is it bad? First of all, I'm not really that concerned that everyone is not joining in boat racing; it would be ruined by becoming a mass sport. Would you really want over a hundred boats at weekend regattas all the time? Our shore facilities cannot handle that. I don’t think it would be as much fun to sail with a big crowd all the time. Major events are enough big fleet stuff for me.

1. I think this could be a natural down phase in the life cycle of sailing activity. It seems to me that the immediate post WWII adult population of sailing’ boom-years is finally dropping out. I say "finally" because they have squeezed every possible sailing moment into their lives and are now age 70-90. We baby-boomers have not taken to sailing with the intensity of our parent’s generation, hence there is a slump when there would have been a further boom. Maybe we were too caught up in TV, or Viet Nam, or whatever in our youth when we could have been getting pumped up about sailing a lot. Anyway, I suspect sailing will come back as our kids, and their kids, rediscover the sport.

2. Is it loss of courage to risk failure? One list-serve writer observed that the difficulty of becoming an above-average sailor exceeds the tolerance of most of today's Americans. Certainly we active sailors have witnessed this. Many of the people I know who sail are essentially at the top of their field of work. But in sailing they are less than proficient. Some just can’t stand the delay in reaching the top of the game.

3. I think a leading competitor for our time and our kids’ time is youth soccer. I think a very high number of parents with 8-15 year olds are missing regattas because of soccer complications. In the past, kids’ sports were on weekdays with infrequent exceptions. Three decades ago, weekends were sacrosanct. Now a sport has blossomed (in the same 40 years that sailing has peaked and declined) and has taken command of the entire weekend. Lots of kids are in two leagues of play. And the parents feel obligated to attend, or have to run the taxi anyway. Don't get me wrong, it's a great game. It must be - it has slaughtered sailing in the contest to gain youth interest.

What to do about soccer conflicts? Sailing regattas need to be shorter - just one day- perhaps Sunday is better for one day events. Parents feel they can't be away from the matches, and the kids won't miss the matches. Offer what soccer does not: informal pick-up games (races) for youth and reduced adult-driven structure. Let kids plan their own events. Or, promote sailing as a natural partner with soccer? I don’t have a clue how we would do that.

4. Sailing participation has clearly been affected by the changing roles of women in the last 40 years. That shift in American society happens to coincide with the drop in sailing activity. It is neither good nor bad, it's just a fact.

The couple I crewed for on the regatta circuit when I was in college had traditional roles. She spent Friday preparing for the regatta and Monday cleaning up the post-regatta effects. When he got home from work on Friday, she had the kids and everything ready to go, we hooked up the boat, and off we went. She sailed and partied just like everyone else.

Who's available to do that pre and post work now? The men seldom did it then, and the women aren't "free" to do it now. They've got important careers out of the house instead of (as well as) important careers at home. It is a fact that the sailing boom started after WWII, coinciding with the departure of women from the workforce for the home. The sailing slump matches the return of a large percentage of women to the employment scene. The percentage of women working outside the home has returned to the WWII figure, again over 60%. I’m not suggesting we change that. However, the sailing venue must be adapted to the new reality.

In Thistles, attendance at districts is all that has been required in recent years (except our 50^th anniversary year, when we had to place well at districts to qualify for nationals.) Our nationals has remained healthy and very well attended. We have had 75-120 boats the last five years with the event moving to all areas of the country. But district and interdistrict events are suffering.

In the Thistle Class we've been talking about whether to re-institute a higher hurdle to qualify for nationals in order to boost participation at the qualifying events. The logic of this is that making people attend two regattas to qualify for nationals would boost the prestige of districts and add boats to the interdistricts. The problem is that people seem to be limiting the number of regattas that they attend. Our interest in coaxing them to attend the "more important" events is partially damaged by the fact that these events move around on the calendar and around the map.

That in mind, I agree with the sailor who wrote that there are really three populations of racing sailors. The ones who will never travel, those who’ll go if a fleet spark-plug gets them out, and the die-hard group who will travel a lot. I believe the first group has had some thinning of the ranks. The sailors who might travel if encouraged have almost disappeared. The die-hards are alive and well.

On the one hand, requiring sailors to attend more qualifying events (regardless of their performance there) would boost the qualifying event boat numbers. On the other hand, adding to the burden of the most ardent group might thin their ranks with a resulting decrease in major event attendance. The task then is to swell the numbers of those who occasionally travel.

Perhaps we need to identify where the occasionally traveling sailors went or why they left the fleet. Was it lack of time? Was it due to the general decline of regatta sites where they had on-site camping, van-camping and local housing? Was it to sail J boats, Tartan Tens, or Slug 25’s? Did they go to the more comfy boats because of declining physical ability? Was it because they were not aware of great advances in clothing for the elements?

I think the remarkable growth of the J designs siphoned off a significant chunk of the pretty active people from active one-design fleets, to our detriment. For those people, going to those boats (in general) virtually eliminated weekend regatta travel, eliminated hiking-out, and put them in smaller fleets at fancier sailing clubs. Why were they willing to give up the sports car thrill of small boats for the luxurious but lethargic Cadillac ride? It must have been a trade-off worth doing.

More schooling! We need to expand the many ways that sailing and racing are learned. The Coach-TCA program presented the last three years at Thistle Midwinters East is one such highly successful format. Attendance at the regatta has almost doubled. Participants have significantly increased their participation in the sailing scene subsequent to the course. There lots of other ways to speed up the learning process that would boost the sport.

Reinvent family sailing. Women, and men with insight, are needed to design the new sailing venue. Couples seem to still want to do things together. Not freeing both to participate means losing both to sailing. We need to reshape the sport so that it meets their schedules and circumstances. Then women, youth, and men will return to sailing in numbers that will make us all happy.

Sell the idea, not a kind of boat. We could do a better job of telling people about sailing. From the set of around 250 million people we should be able to locate another 25 thousand who would be drawn to the sport as I envision it. In a good breeze it can be as physically demanding as a triathlon. In any weather condition it is as mentally challenging as chess with a short time limit on moves.

Recognize the warm fuzzy stuff. We could do a better job sharing the joys of the social aspects of sailing. It sounds corny, but the fact is that after the enjoyment of being out on the water, the next most enjoyable thing about one-design racing is the camaraderie ashore after racing. It's a great group of people who enjoy being out in the wind and waves almost regardless of temperature or precipitation. After a day of racing, they are not worried that their hair is a little wild or their pants are soaked. The socializing begins at the dock and goes until all the racing stories are well-worn. Sailors tend to be gregarious, competitive, technically sophisticated, fun-loving people of all ages and careers. There can be no doubt, those friendships are what keeps people coming back to boat racing, especially one-design sailboats.