Sailing Stereotype Embraces Superficial Understanding

by Eva Hill, Spinsheet
In the perception of some segments of the population, sailors are attired in blue blazers and white pants (à la Judge Smails in Caddyshack) aboard their yachts, calling out across the water to their brethren in the hopes that they’ll have some high-end mustard to share. Just a bunch of brie-eatin’, chardonnay-sippin’ yuppies.

This opinion has been bolstered in the public’s imagination in recent months in the kerfuffle at Pitzer College in California, where the student government nixed the formation of a “yacht club” on the grounds that it was “elitist” and “classist.”

The proponents of the club were seeking funds to take sailing lessons and rent small boats. No one at the college seemed to see any irony in the fact that their college charges annual tuition, room and board in excess of $60,000 a year and sponsors sports teams in the “country club sports” of golf and tennis. Of course, irony is usually lost on those trying to make a point.

Perhaps this negativity being directed towards “yachting” is just a proxy for a more generalized backlash against the “One Percent.” And while I’ll concede that “yachting” has its share of elite participants, I think a lot of the negative attitude is attributable to the complainers not knowing any sailors or having only a superficial understanding of our avocation.

No one, I suspect, would find changing the oil while contorted in the engine compartment very glamorous. Or Rick spending the summer sanding down the teak toerails and handrails on our boat to bare wood and applying seven coats of varnish to them to spare ourselves the cost of having someone else do it. Or pumping out the holding tank.

Of course, no one forced us to buy a boat, so I don’t expect anyone’s pity for the choices we’ve made. By the same token, an appreciation that we all make choices with consequences would not be remiss. For, just like any other avocation, sailing has barriers to entry which include money, equipment, time, talent, and will.

As a comparison, I’ve watched my sister, who has three athletically talented children, devote resources to grooming her kids’ gifts that likely exceed what I’ve put into sailing. The time, road trips, fees, lessons, equipment, and emotional support expended by her and her husband could probably support a nice little sailing habit were it directed that way.

Sailing needn’t be an upper-crust activity. Most sailors that I know didn’t start with big boats; some don’t even own boats. There are sailing clubs that topple the barriers to entry by making memberships affordable and providing access to classes and time on the water for a mere fraction of what ownership entails.

I suspect that the naysayers and flamethrowers who bothered to look into sailing would be disappointed to find that we’re just as happy to throw back a beer and grill a bratwurst off the stern as they are at their alma mater’s tailgate party or after their kids’ soccer game. They might even like us. Because no one’s resources are unlimited — even the ultra-rich are allotted a mere 24 hours a day — and we all have to choose what we do with them.

Source: SpinSheet magazine, March 2016.