Making having fun a priority

What are the variables that impact participation? For any fleet of boats or regatta organizer, the issues will differ but when the cost in time and money to participate exceeds the pleasurable benefit, people will seek alternative activities.

Fun is a vital element, as anything we take too seriously tends to be less fun. Bigger fleets are more fun too, and while this can be a ‘chicken or egg’ scenario, good marketing with personal contact does move the needle.

Yacht racer and broker Don Finkle with RCR Yachts offers his view on the topic:

We all know that regatta attendance has been flagging in recent years, one reason being fewer boats racing than in by-gone days. We also know the other reason is lack of time. The numbers of hours in a day haven’t changed, nor has the number of days in a week or months in a year.

So why is time to go sailing an issue? We think it is largely because of how decisions on spending our time have changed. Looking back to the days of large turnouts the decision to attend was mostly made by the boat owner and crew who were generally males in single-earner households.

Those days are gone, others in the family have a lot to say about what we do and when. There is a workaround that will often work if you really want to sail, and it is to schedule your time first, before others do it for you.

It is virtually guaranteed that if you procrastinate or wait then your calendar will get filled up by the others in your life and you’ll be on the beach instead of on the boat. The same goes for rounding up your crew—you aren’t going anywhere without them, so plan early and encourage them to do so too.

We talk about traveling to regattas a lot here, and that is because we believe they offer a multitude of benefits. You see new places, you meet new people, you expand your sailing horizons, test yourself against different competition in different conditions. You also learn. We have been very fortunate over the years to be able to sail in many different locales and we have met some of our favorite people in sailing at out-of-town regattas.