Unlocking the door toward growth

The health of dinghy one design sailing in the USA is an important topic as it is the gateway toward building and sustaining participation in the sport. Attracting youth sailors while capturing late blooming adults keeps the ball rolling, but obstacles exist as Gail M. Turluck reveals in this report:

I joined the US Sailing One Design Committee with a deep seated desire to improve the situation with what was once known as One Design sailing.

This segment had included Shields, Star, Soling, J/24, Etchells, Flying Scot, 5o5, Snipe, Flying Dutchman, Rebel, Blue Jay, 470, Sunfish, ILCA Dinghy, and many more classes that lost their casual moniker with the advent of Offshore One-Designs–North American 40, Tartan 10, C&C 35, Columbia 30, Beneteau First 40.7, Beneteau First 36.7, and the J/What-is-this-year’s-hot-boat.

Now we try to describe former One Designs as Inshore Small-Boat One-Designs; it’s so cumbersome and unappealing it’s meaningless. Offshore One-Designers get offended when the word “offshore” gets inserted in front of “one-design,” like they’re still sailing a dinghy or day-racer.

I have tried to have consideration made in the One Design Committee to have the Offshore One-Designs (this includes any vessel capable of racing to Mackinac, making Block Island Race Week, or the Three Bridge Fiasco–OR a bigger boat) be divided off into US Sailing Offshore where they belong (and can get served properly with handicap ratings most still acquire, Safety at Sea education that is appropriate, and to stop thinking just because they are doing mostly buoy races that they are “Inshore” boats).

Separating these larger boats would restore awareness of day racing in small-boat one-designs with marketing, events, education, and support to rebuild the base of what was the incredible strength of USA sailing into the 1980s.

We need to have sailors start in some kind of day-sailor small-boat–as owners! There are those that stay happy with their small boat of choice, get really good at sailing it, race it, and become champions. Some manage to do that with more than one small boat.

The lucky few who are successful in business can give in to “3-foot-itis” and buy larger–getting eventually into Offshore. But we need small boat fleets where kids, collegians, and college grads are OWNERS, are buying their way through the fleet into better equipment, and maybe buying a new boat, as was done for years and years.

How we manage this at the same time that we are facing the incredible pressure from the huge regattas with classes and paid crew is another issue. Perhaps there’s another segment–Pro Classes?

Yes, I’m a Sunfish sailor. And yes, I’m a Tartan 10 sailor. But, I fully have my small boat promotion brain on when Sunfishing and my offshore brain on when racing the Tartan 10. (Feel free to ask me about iceboating and RC sailing, too!)

It is going to take a lot of hard work to rebuild our little-boat one-design world. The builders would love to see it happen, they want to sell boats! And the US Olympic program would love to see it happen–it will grow our cadre of elite developing sailors.