By Airwaves Staff Writer Elizabeth Dudley
The J22 East Coast Championship was canceled in the early part of September. It had to be rescheduled for a later date due to a “lack of interest”. Four years ago, the J22 class, at least in the Annapolis area, was one of the strongest fleets. But just a few weeks ago, before a major event was to be held in Annapolis, only nine boats had registered, even with the deadline looming. However, this dropping off in numbers at regattas has not only been seen in the J22 fleet, but in one-design fleets around the country.
I am sure at some point in everyone’s sailing career, you have sailed an event and were disappointed by the attendance. Or you have participated in the phenomenon of: I’ll sail if everyone else does. But everyone else is thinking the same thing, no one signs up, and then no one sails. The more boats that sail a regatta the better the competition. The more boats that sail, the more fun everyone will have.
So then why are fleets struggling to keep participation numbers up? And how can that be fixed? What makes a strong one-design fleet strong?
The answer, like everything else to do with sailing is not black and white. It will differ from fleet to fleet, location to location, and everyone has an opinion. Before writing this article I spoke with Joel Labuzetta, Junior Program Director at Severn Sailing Association in Annapolis, Skip Yale, owner of Yale Cordage and active in the youth sailing program of Falmouth, Maine, and John Loe, an avid sailor. Each had their own take on the matter at hand, but many of their thoughts were similar.
Perhaps the idea they agreed on the most was that in order to keep a fleet strong, young people have to continue to be introduced in to the boat. Joel Labuzetta gave the example of the V-15 fleet in Annapolis. It used to be a strong fleet, but then everyone that was sailing the boat had kids and got busy. There were no new young people in the class to keep it going. It has fallen off significantly. Like most other things in life, there is a succession: the old phases out and the new phases in. The problem lies in the breaking of that cycle. But then how do you keep the wheel in motion?
Typically, when a parent signs their child up for a junior sailing program, they sign them up to sail a specific type of boat. Be it optis, lasers, or 420s. The kids then spend their summers learning a lot about one type of boat. This is certainly not a bad thing. But Skip Yale says that the Falmouth, Maine area junior sailing programs have found success in introducing their sailors to “unconventional” junior sailing boats.
As a part of the programs the kids are in a different type of boat each day. They not only sail optis, lasers, and 420s but are also given the opportunity to sail boats like the J24. Learning to sail other boats, junior sailors are no longer restricted to junior regattas. The idea is to get the junior sailors psyched to sail night races and the bigger events held in the area. Maybe in this way, when junior sailing and college sailing come to an end, it will be easier for the young generation of sailors to figure out what to sail next.
Skip Yale also also spoke of the J24 Down East Regatta that recently took place in Falmouth, Maine. Participants ranged from the young high school sailors to the “Tony Parkers of the world”. 42 boats showed up for an event that last year had numbers only in the mid-twenties. Yale attributed part of its success to the diversity the junior sailors experience in the junior programs. Yale also said that there were a good number of families sailing the event. Parents and their children sailing and having fun is a great way to set-up the next generation of sailors.
On the flip side of that, Joel Labuzetta brought up the conflict of competition and leisure within the sport of sailing. Sailing is such a diverse sport. It can be more of an individual sport, it can be a team sport, it can be extremely competitive, and it can also be quite leisurely. But in order to keep a one-design fleet strong, does the fleet have to push for one or the other? Labuzetta suggests that they do.
Boats that go out on a Tuesday night for competitive racing do not want to be the only boat that is being competitive. On the other side of that, boats that just want to have fun often do not want to deal with the seriousness of the competitive boats. If there are conflicting thoughts among the sailors of the class, it could deter boats from going out and sailing.
Another discouraging factor to the sport of sailing, as John Loe stressed, is the economy. It is a factor that is difficult to deal with but one that definitely has a strong presence. Most levels of sailing take some amount of money, obviously some more than others. Money is an easy way to get back in to sailing, but money is not always on hand. Rather than buying a boat, it is cheaper to crew for someone who already has one. You join forces to split costs so that you can sail, but then you end up with less boats.
There is no real answer as to why some fleets have so much success while others fade. There is no set formula to revive a dying class. The simplest answer may just be to encourage as much sailing as possible. The more sailing opportunities there are and the more excitement there is surrounding the sport, the more participation numbers will stay high. As Joel Labuzetta said, and as repetitive as it may sound, “A strong fleet encourages the strength of the fleet”.
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