Is this the awful truth you were telling us about David when you said we would all stop speaking to you?! Are you a whistle blower, a parliamentary mole with a gigabyte of data on the expenses claims of RYA?Maybe...just maybe, the door was not left open to Smods but forced off it's hinges by demanding sailors, greedy builders and a complacent administration.
Is the shape of a 5-O's bottom (its "Callipygian quality" as Ed put it not so long ago in the rather sweaty thread about wooden Fairey 5-O's) our sailing equivalent of Adult films on the expense account??
The worst thing about the paliamentary expenses scandal is not that they were doing it, but the fact that they were telling the rest of us that we were greedy and corrupt if we so much as put an extra mile on the petrol allowance. They are themselves guilty of Gross Moral Terpitude!! (so now you know David )
So it seems to me you are calling some of the Classic Dinghy classes Pots to the SMOD kettle, which I suppose is a fair enough suggestion. Some classes have learned this to their cost, but in the face of intense competition One design classes perhaps need to adapt or die unless they are supported at a club level. It is all too common for a Club looking at it's membership figures to change its "middle grade" class for a more popular model hoping to attract new members. Wrong! The new prototype class turns out to be badly made, or unsuitable for the water or sailor, overpowered perhaps, or too complicated, and so a stable popular format of close club racing in boats whose history and tradition is linked with a club can suddenly be forever lost at the whim of a few lobbyists. This also happens at a higher level.
For example, The Mirror class has abandoned its "signature" gaff rig for a bermudan. It is justified on the grounds of "Expense," but has surely been pushed through by a minority of the older racing members of the assotiation (who choose to continue racing a childrens boat.) Nessa has already told us how the worst behaved sailors are the Optimist parents.
What is to be done when sailors are deserting in droves to other classes that are percieved to be more Cool or easier to maintain. The SMOD has considerable appeal to the newcomer to the sport. Clean, shiny and aggressively marketed to modern standards that flatter to decieve. You could easily imagine yourself as a champion in one of these whereas the more practical designs sailed and seriously raced in many clubs need more time and attention than a Sunsail or similar Flotilla sailor might have available.
One designs have to modernise, and increased speed is all too often percieved as the same process. I have enjoyed a week-end at the back of, but nevertheless still within the fleet of highly competative fireflies without suffering the indignity of being lapped because a good winning margin is not a country mile by merit of the boats naturally slower hull speed. I do not as a result feel that I am completely outclassed even if that is actually the case!
Long time sailors love to sail. Doesn't matter what the boat is. Whichever classes are allowed into the CVRDA events I think the CVRDA is essentially safe from being overun by "Bandits" because if someone needs winning that much they probably don't really love the sport, or the pursuit of quintessentialism that seems to underly much of the CVRDA event philosophy.
It is the difference between a Twitcher and a Birdwatcher.