Get more racers on the water

Since 2020, the topic of handicap dinghy racing has had Scuttlebutt headlines such as Get more one design dinghies racing and Dinghy handicap racing deserves support. In this report by Gary Jobson for Sailing World, he beats this well-worn drum that deserves to be heard:

As I’ve traveled around the country over the years visiting yacht clubs and community sailing centers big and small, I’ve observed an extraordinary amount of perfectly good raceboats sitting idle on their trailers, racks and moorings. It’s easy to tell which ones don’t get used very often, their owners likely at home and thinking about the happier times when they bought the boat with aspirations of using it frequently and maybe even winning a few races.

Either life gets in the way, or in the case of many older one-designs, when new classes come on to the scene, older ones tend to fade away. Too often, remaining boats don’t have a place on the racing schedule, a spark plug to keep the fleet active or a community to rally. This sad and all too common sight of lonely crafts is often a result of too many types of boats in one area but access to the water and easy storage and launching are other barriers that I often hear about. – Full report