Championship Attendences

[PI Design]

This link http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/classes/?s=44 shows attendance at UK national championships for every major (and almost all minor) dinghy class in the UK. It gives figures from 1998 to 2007 (we're in the middle of championship season so not all figures are in for this year).

Whilst it is important to stress that championship attendance is not, on its own, a wholly relaible measure of class popularity it is clearly an important yardstick. For example, most sailors in the UK wouldn't recpognise a Squib if it bit them on the bum, but in the region where they are sailed they are clearly vibrant.

Anyway, a few intersting things can be summised:

1. Youth sailing is incredibly popular, and getting more so. The Optimist, Cadet, Pico, Topper, Mirror, RS Feva, 420 and 29er would all be considered predominantly youth boats.

2. The Int Moth has not gained (or lost) in popularity at all in the last 10 years. With an average attendance of 20, it is one of the less sailed classes - but very photogenic.

3. Trapeze boats are unpopular - top two-man (adult) trapeze boat is the Fireball. There are 6 hiking boats targetted at similar size/skill sailors with higher average turnouts.

4. Big spinnakers are unpopular - small spinnakers are not exactly popular.

5. Classes controlled by the manufacturer (SMODs) do not have long lasting appeal - can mid-life rule changes and greater independence from the manufacturers revive them?

6. There are an abundance of classes in the UK - a boat for everyone.

7. Thrills and spills get more photo's but don't get more sailors.

[tspeer]

Good to see the Merlin Rocket still maintaining its popularity! Not too shabby for a restricted class that tends to be made up of hand-built boats with many different designs. I think one secret to its longevity is the fact that you can find a design that fits one's home venue and sailing weight. Both heavy and light crews can be competitive.

Originally Posted by PI Design

2. The Int Moth has not gained (or lost) in popularity at all in the last 10 years. With an average attendance of 20, it is one of the less sailed classes - but very photogenic.


7. Thrills and spills get more photo's but don't get more sailors.

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Pi, I don't think those statements are an accurate reflection of the situation at all. Bladerider has JUST STARTED ramping up production
and are, apparently, overwhelmed with orders-as is Fastacraft,I think.
There is enormous intersest in the foiler Moth
reflected by a very large turnout at the worlds but mostly by the level of orders which, according to Bladerider, is very high.
I think the reason for the orders is just exactly the thrills and spills aspect -and the fact that the foiler Moth is one of the fastest dinghies under 20'.

[Crag Cay]

Very interesting.

But there are other variables I would like to see listed as well. How many days were the Nationals, how many travellers, how many new boats has the class built over the last year, how many different people have won the Championship over the past 10 years, etc, etc

When you run a class association, it's hard to know what to do to develop the class championships. The common 'mantra' is for a shorter format, no triangles, venue close to the largest home fleets, no entries from sail makers, latest gizmos, make it 'sezy', lax rule enforcement and measurement as it's only for fun, etc....

But I'm not sure this is ever bourn out in reality. I'm always amazed just how well some very 'un-trendy' classes do despite being given almost no coverage in the press as they are yesterday's news.

I think the X-class, 12 square metres, Sonatas, Merlin Rockets, etc will still feature in the list of popular classes for years to come. If having no new boats built for the past 50 years (in some cases) hasn't stopped them thriving so far, why should it from now on?

[Chris Ostlind]

Originally Posted by Doug Lord

...Bladerider has JUST STARTED ramping up production
and are, apparently, overwhelmed with orders-as is Fastacraft, I think.

There is enormous intersest in the foiler Moth reflected by a very large turnout at the worlds but mostly by the level of orders which, according to Bladerider, is very high.

... the fact that the foiler Moth is one of the fastest dinghies under 20'.

"Apparently" and "I think" are not quantitative analytical terms. They are opinions. If things are so cool in the Bladerider camp, why can't they produce verifiable, confirmed sales of product at this point? You know, something like a list of boats and sail numbers that went out to various national or regional distributors along with their email addresses to be able to do a follow-up and get it on the the record, so to speak?

Without verification, it's just fluff.

What, exactly, were the turn-out numbers at the Worlds? PI has the good grace to supply data with his example. Where is yours? Of the "big numbers" who started the event, how many actually finished all the races? What good is a "big turn-out" if all the boats can't functionally complete the event? That looks a lot like the sport is oversold with lots of wannabees hanging around at the periphery, not really capable of belonging with that gang that have fully prepped, sorted out boats and have the experience to be in the mix.

And what is with calling Moth foilers by the term.... dinghies? Seems like the moment you start flying, you are no longer using the hull (the identifier from which the class term originates) for any of the support while in the water. At least that's what the claims are about, aren't they? "You'll be flying at lower speeds with higher top-end speeds than ever before" How is that a dinghy anymore?

[CT 249]

The Y&Y Table is always fascinating. I've got some copies of it dating back to the early '70s or the '60s. Even back then, it showed that high-performance was not the way forward. The Fireball and 505 climbed close to the top of the popularity rankings in the mid '70s- but at just about (perhaps exactly) the same time, dinghy sailing ended 20+ years of enormous growth and started to shrink. The correlation is interesting (although correlation does not equal causation, of course). It seems that when fast boats climb in the popularity stakes it may be a symbol of the fact that the sport is ignoring the new, average or less performance-oriented sailors on whichs its overall popularity depends.

It's also interesting to see that dinghy sailing in the UK (by this measure) has markedly increased in the last few years. Go back 10 or so years, and all the big companies and the mags are saying that skiff types were the way of the future.....dinghy sailing declined. Now the big companies are mainly pushing slow family or youth type boats, and dinghy sailing's increasing.

The overall number of entries from the Y&Y table shows a steady increase in Nationals attendance by 40% over 9 years (although it may not be mirrored at club level) So any ra-rah claims of increasing fleets for fast boats must be seen against the backdrop of OVERALL fleet size increasing.

Someone who prefers to remain nameless on this forum also did an analysis of this data, which showed that the single most important factor that increased a class' popularity was the percentage of women sailing the class. That was enormously significant IMHO. Pity those entrusted with running the sport cannot do similar evidence-based planning.

US dinghy sailing shows a similar trend towards medium or slow boats being more popular.

Class Assn. Members '05

US Optimist Dinghy 2950
Int'l Lightning Class Assn. 2529
Laser Class of No. America 2400
Club 420 1850
Thistle Class Assn. 1754
Flying Scot Sailing Assn. 1650
U.S. Sunfish Class Assn. 1500
Hobie Class Assn. 1010
Snipe USA 724
MC Scow 568
Nat'l Class E Scow Assn. 478
Day Sailer Assn. 400
Y-Flyer 268
Highlander Class Int'l Assn. 250
Windmill Class Assn. 200
Interlake Sailing Class Assn. 192
Bullseye Class Assn. 185
U.S. Wayfarer Assn. 136
Buccaneer 18 133
505 130
X Boat 125
Comet Class Yacht Racing Assn. 122
Byte Class Assoc. 115
Jet 14 111
Albacore 104
Intl Wave Class Assn. 100
Mobjack 100
Nacra 100
Classic Moth Boat Assn. 70
PDRacer 61
Inland 20 60
29er 60
Contender 50
International 14 44 (ISAF figure, no USS figure)
M-20 39
Bongo 35
Raider 'One' 28
49er 26 (ISAF figure, no USS figure)
ACA (Sailing Canoe) 24
Int 10 sq m Canoe - 25?????? (my estimate, probably generous)
M Scow 15
Narrasketuck Design Assn. 15
U.S. OK Dinghy Racing Assn. 15

Lido and V-15....??????

Anyone saying that performance=popularity will have to explain facts such as how the Thistle (basically a 1940's Int 14 blown up and frozen so effectively that #1 won the nats a few years back) now has 50 times the membership of the International 14, one of the world's most highly developed boats. Or the fact that the 420 is 30 times more popular than the 29er.

Just using the average national title attendance, excluding the Opti and 420 as youth classes*, shows a similar trend of slow/medium pace boats dominating;

1) Thistle-86.67
2) Laser-83.00
3) MC scow-82.67
4) Lightning-80.00
5) Sunfish-77.67
6) E scow -65.33
7) Hobie 16-65.00
7) J/24-65.00
9) Radial-62.33
10) Snipe-57.33
11) C scow-54.67
11) Star-54.67
13) J/22-54.00
14) Etchells-51.33
15) Flying Scott-49.67
16) 505-49.33
17) 29er-48.00
18) Vanguard 15-44.67
19) Lido 14-44.33
20) Albacore-41.67

I think these figures underline something else. Smaller classes generally get a much HIGHER proportion of active boats at the nationals, perhaps because it's the only chance they'll get to sail in a larger fleet. In one of the classes I sail (well, own...it needs repairs) about 80% of the existing boats turned up at the last nats because that regatta is their only chance to get a class race. In contrast, in a class like Lasers most club sailors can race 10-30 boats any day, and that's enough traffic and competition for them so they don't go to titles. Even the guys at the front of many club fleets know they're not fast enough and they don't want to tangle with 60+ boats, so they also don't go to titles. There's also not the same sense that you have to support the class by entering, when you know it'll do well without you.

The same holds true for many classes IMHO. In the classes I sail which get fewer than 30 boats to Nats, almost 100% of the club fleet goes to the Nats. In the classes that get over 30, it's more like 25% to 0% of the club fleets that goes to the Nats.

Anyone agree???????


*not my call, these are figures from SA

Looking at ISAF Class Reports shows that a certain (wonderful) high-performance singlehander will have to increase current production to 105 times last year's level, just to start catching the leading singlehander (Opti apart). That's one hell of a lot of "ramping up".

PS...While some SMODss have suffered badly, so have non-SMODs like I-14s and F-15s (sob!). I wonder if the big builders and the market have learned a lesson??

Excuse the rave.

[foilr]

Has anyone put together the equivalent numbers for Australia? I tried doing it a while ago, but had too many gaps.

Anyone interested in finding the data and maintaining it?

[PI Design]

Doug - this is the Moth figures for the last 10 years. I like Moths, but the fact of the matter is that they have seen no growth over a period when dinghy sailing in general has boomed. The boats that have really taken off are boats like the RS200, a small two person (oftem man & woman) hiking boat with a very small asymmetric spinnaker (assy for convenience, not performance).
Moth figures 1998-2007 :

21 21 17 20 19 18 32 24 11 20

Foilers have been around for what, 5 years now?

At Christmas, Y&Y publish their racing review, with (supplied) figures for boat sales. It would be an interesting exercise to cross reference the two sets of figures.

[CT 249]

Monofoiling Moths have been around (as in, working, unlike Ian Ridge's earlier boat) since Wardie's in 1998. According to the Moth class report in ISAF, over the past year there have been 30 boats built; over the past 5 years, 70.

I can't find figures for an equivalent period for the same nine-year period after the first Windsurfer was launched. However, according to Windsurfer Magazine in 1981, 12 years after the first Windsurfer was launched there were 200,000 Windsurfer One Designs with official associations in 85 countries. The Windglider had 85,000 boaards and official associations in 19 countries. There were over 200 models of board on sale and annual sales in Europe and North America alone were 170,000 units. Top speed (officially recorded over 500m @Weymouth, not in a short dash) was 27.82 knots. Prizes of up to $40,000 US - a lot of money in 1981 - were available in pro events in several countries (from France to Oz). Light-wind triangle-racing boards were already about as fast as a modern Moth around a triangle in light airs (but nowhere near as quick as a foiler in foiling conditions).

That's what a real "revolution" in sailing looks like, in terms of effects on our sailing scene....170,000 units per year instead of 30.

I love Moths. My first boat was a Moth. I'm moving one of my old ones tomorrow. It looks as though the foilers will succeed in keeping the class at the forefront of sailing, and that's wonderful.

But it's not a mass market thing, and as most of us here know, the idea that sailing HAS to become faster to increase or maintain popularity flies in the face of reality and has caused nothing but severe damage to the sport - in fact it is probably the biggest problem that sailing faces today.

Foilr; I've been going through some old Australian mags, looking to build up a database. There's a huge amount of holes and I've only been looking at the long-term trends. Maybe I/we should get on SA or somewhere and see if anyone is interested in a cooperative effort to try to pull some figures together.

I'm sure you realise this is not anti-foiler, but just anti-********.

Originally Posted by PI Design

Doug - this is the Moth figures for the last 10 years. I like Moths, but the fact of the matter is that they have seen no growth over a period when dinghy sailing in general has boomed.

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Pi,I'm not disputing your figures-just the conclusions you've drawn from them. Its really only been the last year and a half that there has been more than one Moth foiler builder. And none of them were even close to "mass production". The Bladerider organization is just now ramping up production due to what they say is an overwhelming response. One of their people claims that they are shooting for production in the hundreds per year but they are surely not there yet. Even that is not mass production and it will take years for those numbers(combined with the other two manufacturers) to show up in statistics. As best as I can tell there are three manufacturers building as fast as they can-but its still a Moth not a Peoples Foiler.
The revolution in sailing represented by the bi-foil Moth is in its technology not its numbers-so far.It is a technology with applications across a far broader scope of boats than windsurfer technology: to dinghies,one, two, three person, to multihulls, to sportboats and to large self-righting keelboats. And I'm certain that this phenominal technology will breed a new boat: easy to sail,beach-sailable, low wind speed takeoff Peoples Foiler(or two). When that happens the numbers will more than likely be extraordinary.
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I find it interesting in CT's comments that he considers the Hobie 16, E scow and MC scow to fit the category of"slow to medium" boats that he says dominate. Well the closest to a medium speed boat there is the MC scow because the Escow and Hobie are quite fast and regarded as high performance boats by many people. Many people I've talked to that have sailed different boats think the MC is a high performance boat as well.
Regardless, there simply has not been enough time gone by to fairly indicate the market response statistically to the only bi-foil monofoiler now available-the Moth. And the boat that will eventualy become the Peoples Foiler
may not even be sailing yet.

[CT 249]

Doug Lord wrote;

"I find it interesting in CT's comments that he considers the Hobie 16, E scow and MC scow to fit the category of"slow to medium" boats that he says dominate. Well the closest to a medium speed boat there is the MC scow because the Escow and Hobie are quite fast and regarded as high performance boats by many people. Many people I've talked to that have sailed different boats think the MC is a high performance boat as well."




For one, you're misquoting me. I did not say that the H16, E or MC were slow to medium performance boats. I said that slow/medium boats dominate in the list of popular classes.

And I don't think the Hobies are very high performance by cat standards. The most popular Hobie, the 16, is about 15% slower than an F16. The Hobie is the middle boat in 16 footers in Portsmouth yardstick. In other words, for what it is (a 16 foot cat) it's exactly average in speed ie medium speed.. The Tiger, as a F18, was specifically designed to a class that trades off sheer pace for strength and economy, because the cat builders realised that pure speed
does not equal performance. I understand the slow Wave is growing quickly.

The E Scow is a great boat, but it's not incredibly quick considering its size; despite being a 28 footer that rates slower than a 16 foot 49er and only 7% or so quicker than a 16 foot 505. It rates slower than where people reckon the Int 14 should rate despite being twice as long.

The MC Scow, at 16 feet, rates only 2% faster than the 2' shorter Laser and slower than the 15' Tasar.

And even if we do concede that the E Scow is quick (while I'll happily do) and the Hobies as well - so what??? That means that 2 of the 12 most popular centreboarders are high performance boats.

When slow/medium speed boats are SIX TIMES as popular in the top dozen on the popularity list, it's obvious that speed is not the key to popularity.



Regardless, there simply has not been enough time gone by to fairly indicate the market response statistically to the only bi-foil monofoiler now available-the Moth. And the boat that will eventualy become the Peoples Foiler
may not even be sailing yet.[/i]

The previous "revolutions" in sailing (ie Hobie type surfcats, tris, amateur-built ply dinghies, fibreglass, windsurfing) had a huge impact, numbered in dozens or thousands of units sold and sailing, in the same time frame as the monofoiler. So according to previous standards, there has CLEARLY been enough time for a "revolution" to put hundreds of boats on the water.

Originally Posted by CT 249

Doug Lord wrote;
So according to previous standards, there has CLEARLY been enough time for a "revolution" to put hundreds of boats on the water.

-------------------
I must not have been clear in my previous post; for that I apologize. I tried to convey the fact that UNTIL there is a Peoples Foiler there will never be the numbers of a Hobie and probably never of a windsurfer in any case-at least in one type or class of boat. No way will the Moth foiler carry the revolution to the people much more than it already has by defining , refining and showing the potential of the technology. The bi-foil revolution- in terms of boat numbers- awaits a Peoples Foiler as has been described earlier and in numerous places on this forum.
But it is also much more than a single Peoples Foiler with applications across the spectrum of dinghies, multihulls, sportsboats and larger keelboats.

[CT 249]

Even allowing for that, it's taking a long time compared to the time that it has taken other "revolutions" to go from early experiments, all the way to enormous popularity.

I have given the windsurfer numbers above - some 11 years from the first floundering experiment (I don't count the Darby board as anything like a modern windsurfer) to about 300,000 boards afloat.

Cats are also impressive in terms of speed of growth. As far as I can find out, the western off the beach cat (the CSKs and Herreshoff's 32'er were not "off the beach" boats) started with the Prout's experiments of lashing two kayaks together in 1949. Their first real design, the Shearwater, started racing in 1954. Twelve years after that first experiment of 1949, there were about 1200 cats in the UK racing classes alone.

So for this "revolution" to be similar to preceding ones in terms of craft sailing 11 years after the first fledgling steps, the "peoples foiler" will have to be launched and sell about 2000+ craft in the next two years.

[Chris Ostlind]

Originally Posted by CT 249

So, for this "revolution" to be similar to preceding ones in terms of craft sailing 11 years after the first fledgling steps, the "peoples foiler" will have to be launched and sell about 2000+ craft in the next two years.

About as likely as the proverbial monkey and its flight from a posterior human orifice.

[Paul B]

Originally Posted by CT 249

..the idea that sailing HAS to become faster to increase or maintain popularity flies in the face of reality ...

At the weekend I was talking to a top end Coronado 15 team. The C15 is a heavy brute of a single trapeze, non-spinnaker double-hander. They get great fleet racing here. The boys are hoping to do well at this year's nationals, then probably sell the boat. They would like to get something a bit sportier.

They talked about a 49er, but there is no one to race against in SoCal. In fact, aside from the yearly Olympic Classes Regatta I have never seen a 49er at our club, the top dinghy club in the LA area.

Getting a top-line I14 is a US$30K proposition, to race maybe 6 regattas a year against maybe 12 boats, more than half of those not competitive.

They are both probably too big to be foiling Mothies, and there's no fleet here anyway. No fleet? There isn't ONE.

So the helm said he might just pull out his Laser and have a go at that. Nice big fleets, he's about ready for the Masters Class too.

They both sail some big boat stuff on the same program I sail on, so they probably will end up without a skiff or high perfromance dinghy of any type for the forseeable future.

Lido 14s, Lasers, Snipes, etc, those "low performance" boats really outstrip "high performance" boats in this neighborhood.