Your neighbouring club needs you!
Whilst on the face of it, 93 helms taking part in the 2019 GP series sounds good, the slightly concerning fact is that the majority of those helms only took part in one event and that was at their home club!
Whilst it would be far too much to hope for to see 93 boats at each event (not to mention scary for the event organisers and local populations), a few more travellers would be good to see.
There is still a core of approximately twenty travelling boats, from which events might normally expect to see twelve to fifteen arrive. The rest of the numbers are normally being made up of home club boats.
The really disappointing bit has been the lack of support for some events from clubs that are very close to them. An extreme example of this was at Stokes Bay, which despite being in the Heart of the Solent and the apparent sailing Mecca of the South, there was only one visiting boat from any other club within twenty miles (luckily 23 travellers came from much further afield including Holland!).
The feedback from those attending events at their home clubs is generally good. The socials are enjoyed and the learning curve, along with the excitement from sailing within the larger fleet, are also appreciated. That leads us to think that these events are still worth putting on, and those who do travel the miles during the summer certainly think so.
Another example of a poorly supported event was Minnis Bay, which put on a good little event and even had free camping and camper van parking. There were only twelve boats entered, including one from the club. There were no travellers from Herne Bay, Whitstable, Seasalter or the Island sailing club on Sheppey. All of the aforementioned clubs would have been within sailing distance of Minnis Bay, and both Whitstable and Sheppey have their own TT events!
Luckily for Minnis Bay, Worthing decided on an ‘away weekend’ and took six boats the 95 miles to support what was a local event for them that year (they also took seven boats to their other local event, Stokes Bay).
Numbers at events have dropped slightly over the last few years and we
all know that generally the more boats, the more fun, both on and off the water. The likelihood of more boats also means that clubs are prepared to spend more on the event in terms of off-water activities / facilities which again raises the enjoyment level.
It would not take much to reverse this slight decline, and most of that could be done ‘locally’. In 2020 we would particularly like to see clubs ‘local’ to events, making a special effort to support them. We’re not asking everybody to match the ‘boys from Brid’ (and the girls but that doesn’t rhyme!) by travelling thousands of miles each year to every venue; just support your local event wherever it is. In turn, we would hope that should you have an event in the future their members will support you.
We appreciate that if lots of people are constantly leaving home clubs to compete on the circuit this can impact on club sailing. However, we’re not asking you to do everything and one or two weekends in the year is surely not too much to ask to support your fleet. You may even find that by promoting a fleet weekend away you increase club sailing prior to the event as preparation.
So, if you are a fleet captain or even just proactive, please look at the schedule for next year, pick out the event nearest you, get around your other club members and arrange an ‘away weekend’ to support that event. If you are within sailing distance, with a little bit of preparation I’m sure the host clubs would allow you to run feeder races to them the weekend before, all adding to the fun of the event.
Local clubs can often be seen by some as rivals. But in the world of Dart, let’s try to work together and make them friends. Let’s make the 2020 schedule a success for both local and distant travelling sailors and preserve the ‘circuit’ that we all enjoy when we are on it!