Mark,
Actually my club is an example of what you are describing. Zandvoort is a town of maybe 20.000 people and we have 4 sailing clubs on a stretch of about 15 km. My club is the larger of the 4 and we have about 100 boat in a beach side mast-up parking. Our club house is build up every april and broken down in oktober and is two stories high and features a bar, showers, lockers, sail storage and a place to sit under the sun screens and talk about the good old days. In addition the club owns its own race committee boat, two tractors and as score of bouys and other race course related material. Each year an distance race event is organised that attracts about 100 racing catamarans. On weekend days and wednesday evening the bar is manned by the club members.
http://www.wvz.vuurwerk.nlBut I'm not really sure what you are asking me.
We too find it hearder every year to find volunteers to fill important club positions. Of those 100 boats only a good 20 are really active, the rest just shows up 5 times a year in mid summer and take a short recreational sail. Our club racing is existant and yes we do get between 7 and 20 boat in our club races but every time it involves some effort to get everyone out. On good club race days we do have about 10 to 15 F18's participating with the other boats being F16's, Inter-20's, an A-cat and a Prindle 18. All the smaller boats like Hobie 16 etc have just disappeared. They are still present at the club but not owned by really active sailors, certainly not the racing kind.
I think that the large size of our club in members is keeping us a float. Afterall if you have 100 boats in the parking then chances are you get about 20 really active sailors. That is one reason why I wrote earlier that a large recreational base is important for the cat sailing scene. If our club had only 30 boats or so then relatively speaking only 1 or 2 boats would be really active. I also believe that the fact that tour 20 active crews are nearly always about makes the other 80 crews come to the club once in a while. They know that stuff is happening and so even if they don't sail themselfs they tend to come and grab a beer, do some talking and watch the active sailors do their stuff on the water. So in return I would say that the 20 active sailors are in their turn very important to keep they other 80 crews "on board". Without these 100 crews the club could get into financial problems.
It is my opinion that activity and "news" is what is keeping our scene active and alive. Thank God ! for the rise of formula catamarans, I would also say. Because these classes do tend to keep the "club talk" going and they do concentrate the individual efforts of the active racers into a single minded race scene. We must remember that back in the 80's European club would be even more active and the many local club race fleets would easily attract 30 to 40 boat in the weekends. So even we are in decline, but we had alot more margin to tack up the decline without losing much of our infrastructure.
One other consideration that I would like to mention is that our club is not only catering for the cat and dinghy sailors but also for the wind surfers and kite surfers. I think making the club more broad in this scene is a very wise approach. Again, new stuff is happening and this keeps the "old gits" at the bar and club house young and alive. I think that this leasure time oppurtunity for the recreational sailors is part of the reason the club is generating enough income and buzz to have the people coming back.
http://www.lunaforkidz.nl/kite/kite180307.htmlIn another club I belonged to years ago I have seen what can happen if this sensitive balance is not maintained. This club almost collapsed within 3 years. Its membership went down from about a 100 crews (boats) to just shy of 60 boats. The first thing to go were the active club racers. This lead to the club racing to be terminated and the active sailors went to other clubs or stopped sailing. This meant volunteers were very hard to come by and the recreational sailors started to frequent the club less and less because halve the time nobody was around. This lead to negative feedback loop and soon all members were coming less and less. As a result the race scene was completely finished without a chance to get restarted and things got worse and worse. That is what can happen when you reach negative critical mass.
Anything else you want to know ?
Wouter
