I found a Fleetwind!

[JimC]

have you come to any conclusions as to the rationale at work here?

Just a phenomenon, not a law.

I'm very reluctant to try and guess reasons for such phenomena: that's the sort of thing Social "Scientists" do, and I have have neither their training nor confidence in the scientific basis of their profession! It seems to me that parents who might have been sailing with their dads at the Mirror Nationals when they were 11 are now on the beach watching their own offspring in Oppies and Toppers. It also seems to me that (at least where I sail) dad is seen less at the sailing club than his father was, and mum is now more likely to be watching from on the bank than stuck in the kitchen, whether at home or sailing club. All these are social changes I guess.

The fast boats I have even less idea... Ten years ago I predicted that the 29er generation would result in a big jump in high performance sailing as the skills became more widely distributed, but it appears to me that I was wrong and the 29er generation are now happily sailing RS200s...

[Rupert]

Or are the 29er generation currently working hard/starting families/paying for houses/doing some kite surfing on the side - it must be about a decade now - and maybe they will come back into sailing in their late 30's wanting a high performance boat to bring back the buzz they felt from 29ers in their teens, but with better weight carrying. Of course, they might not have a crew (not as easy as when a teen to find someone to sail with) so might end up in a Musto? Could explain why that class is doing well.

Or maybe they are happy with the 200 - it is fun to sail - or even a 2000 with the kids...

[davidh]

Rupert...... Hmmnn...interesting! Maybe!
Jim: Like you, I share the 'engineer's' distrust of some of the fuzzier social sciences and their lack of scientific discipline. But there are some interesting techniques now available for looking at multi-faceted complex situations that are, these days, pretty good! But you would need access to a lot of core data (in the raw, unprocessed form) and a great deal of time and effort - far more than I fear most of us have at our disposal.

Mind you, there are others that would say that the problems are fairly intuitive! I note that over on the Y&Y forum, Chris 249 reports a similar situation out in Australia and I've seen similar issues with some NZ fleets.

But this doesn't explain why other nations are seeing the reverse! In Germany they have more FDs, Contenders, OKs and 505s than you can shake a stick at, ditto Denmark, Eastern Europe, clearly there is (as we've long known) nothing actually wrong with the boats themselves.

It is very interesting though and a topic that is right now very dear to me; I wrote the preface and 1st Chapter of the 505 book some time ago, then sat down yesterday and went through something of a rewrite. Going all the way back to the immediate post war years does give one something of an insight- -I've some documentation that I drew on from the YRA/RYA for the Merlin Rocket book where the 'powers that be' take exception to the new 14ft dinghy, questioning what it might do to the two established classes, the 14 and the "more virile" (their words, not mine!) National 12!

The trouble is - going all the way back then, the big golden era had yet to happen, so you have that period of growth, stability and only then, the decline.

If you think of anything else that you think impacts on this, please let me know!

Cheers

D

[Rod]

Interesting sideways discussion - which is typical for this forum. We, as old farts, know the gestalt of dinghy racing has changed but, as typical of old farts, and has been mentioned, turn to the history of our youth and young adult lives (which, as it may turn out, may be the golden age of dinghy racing) as the foundation from which we can only judge the present. How does hip-hop, rap, X-box, smart phones, Twitter, Instagram, FB, these electronic social umbilical cords, twerking, nae nae; I'm age 14 and I've done everything I can do in dinghy racing (Optis); how do these Millennials/Generation Y (what's the next tag- who knows) relate to those who like to cut out a piece of plywood and slap it into a boat project, or those who dig through the weeds with wide-eyed wonder at this hulk-that used to be a sailboat- a historical one-off I've just discovered.

I await your analysis.

[davidh]

Rod.....

I think you've put your finger on another of the contributory causes!

A while back I was RO at a major yoof event and ended up with one of the so called 'yoof sailors' out on the Committee Boat with me. Gordon Bennets..... I thought I had an ego but I ended up almost feeling inadequate! It wasn't that he was in the top squad or anything like that.... I think he'd once won a regatta when on holiday out in the Med with Mum and Dad!

How to tell him that at that age I was trying to keep an old Moth afloat and in one piece...let alone upright out on the water!

I just think it was all so much fun back then!

D

[Pat]

I think one of the biggest differences now is that families seem to centre everything around the children and it's all about the children doing activities with other children not with parents, but when we were young, children were expected to join in with the adults at weekends and activities were done together and also with less spare cash the boat had to be a family thing rather than just for the yoof.
That 29er generation will be focusing on children's activities, watching from the sidelines now, rather than doing activities with the children.

[solentgal]

I think the simple factors in the decline of the smaller boats (Gull, Mirror,Heron as mentioned earlier) are changes change in building materials, weight and family budget. I think many people decided on smaller boats for practical reasons back in the day....a Heron is a lot lighter than a GP14 for example, and folk with elderly secondhand cars in the 60s, a non-combi trailer, skippered by Dad and 1 or 2 youngsters on a low budget may have simply wanted something that was cheaper and easier to manage than the slightly larger dinghy they may have desired.
Nowadays we all have nice powerful cars and are generally better off, so we can all buy a slightly larger, lighter dinghy on a modern combi trailer. This has been brought home to me when faced with the prospect of fitting a towbar to my little Standard 10 last year (it is an excellent example of what would have been a typical used car back in the 60s). I struggled to launch and recover our GP single-handed last year, purely due to weight. I abandoned idea of the towbar for the Standard 10, and was using our Micra, which is probably more powerful than many 60s saloons, and handled it ok.....so this demonstrates my point quite well.

Meanwhile, back to Fleetwinds: They were a very distinct design, as they have a very high aspect rig which I think I am right in saying that Alan Eckford drew up with river sailing in mind....to catch the wind over trees/river banks. There was a stronghold of them up on the East coast I think.....probably the broads I am guessing. There were also a number down here, possibly at the Tudor SC as David says....I can't remember for certain, but they were also adopted by the Solatron (?spelling) club down on the west end of Hayling (by the Ferry-boat Inn) and my second one (named Fwizz) originated from there, and I am sure I remember seeing others in the boat park in the late 70s. I believe they were often used as single handers too..... I have seen race reports to this effect.
I have often wondered what happened to #422....named "Fledermaus" .......anyone know?

[Rupert]

There were 3 Gulls out at Whitefriars today, all being sailed singlehanded by members of the Ladies' group, and all being enjoyed a lot. They were the more modern ones (2 certainly built by Hartley, the Calypso) not sure whether the other predated that. Good to see that the class is still popular.

[JimC]

Solatron (?spelling) club down on the west end of Hayling

Solartron. There's another sign of changing times. Solartron (who still trade, umpteen changes of ownership later I see from the web) were a medium sized light engineering company in Kingston, Surrey. The sailing club was the company sailing club originally, but those are pretty near extinct now... There's still a Met Police sailing club, Silver Wing is no longer BA only, any more?

[keithr]

We still have one in Clywedog which started life at Colemere which was a strong base of them in the 60's.

It may be for sale as Rod my crew owns it and has now got a Laser fun so it is still resting in his garage.


Keith

[jpa_wfsc]

That 29er generation will be focusing on children's activities, watching from the sidelines now, rather than doing activities with the children.

I so agree - i did practicaly all my youth sailing with my dad, or arguing loudly with my sisters, and little as a large youth group. Nowadays, nearly all my sailing is teaching groups of kids while their parents watch from the bank!

[Rupert]

The success stories from the teaching sessions is when you see families out at other times together having fun.

I didn't learn from my parents, but with my brother, when a school friend of his didn't want to crew his dad, so got Nick involved. I just went along coz I had to go somewhere, got a job in the front of a Firefly, and learned all my ultra competitive bad habits at an early age. So long as the groups have a broad focus, not just a race helming one, I think they can be a better way of doing things. And the parents should help, not watch.

As for company clubs, Tamesis was (is?) between the BP club and Aerial club, belonging to the BBC.