Red Circle Boutique

by John Curnow, Editor Sail-World AUS on 7 Aug 2017 We all need to gather around for a conversation. That sounds a bit like something your parents may have had with you when you were younger. Or perhaps it is the one where the Headmaster got the whole year or school in for, when they could not determine exactly whom had done what! Alas, we are not looking for something so daunting, but it may be just as big, and if we’re lucky, certainly just as formulative.

It could well be robust at times, but it has to remain fair and true throughout, just like the breezes we all love to sail in. It is not about painting a target on anyone or anything, but rather binding together, so that the collective set of shoulders is so broad as to be able to handle the load. After all, when something is to have a heap of Larry, you engineer the shape and materials so as to cope with it.

Strategic direction is the issue at hand, and whilst that will ultimately require some tactical responses to make it come to pass, for the moment it must not get bogged down in the minutiae. For we do sincerely have the opportunity to influence the future, and given this is one of the very few sports for life, there is a real need to ensure our direction is not only accurate, but the destination sustainable and popular.

Things have changed in the world quite radically, and just as so in sailing. The parallels are there and you can see it in the changes to the boats and the changes in the participation. Look at who is involved, how they are engaging, and what they are participating in. Remember too, that in a boating sense, yachts represent such a small part of it all, with our power cousins the much larger group. Ponder for a moment as well, that our peak body is charged with looking after them as well.

Don’t see it that way? Well look at the fact that FDU no longer has the 120+ empty jugs of Bundy and Coke on the tables out the front of the Customs House. That at nearly every club you can name the new dedicated racers that have been launched in the last five years, because no one is building them anymore. That two-sail events like Wednesday Wonders are going off, yet soon Gosford to Lord Howe will just be a string of questions like, What or Where?

Equally, this is not about saying backwards is actually the way forward. Things like fractional ownership will continue to rise, as the amount of time people will have to utilise their craft will be reflected in the investment they are prepared to make. The real journey is making sure that the true rank and file receive more than a book for their commitment to the cause.
It is also about ensuring that events get the encouragement and support they need to adapt and change to make their offering both real and pertinent in a market so competitive for their time and dollar as to be a tad bewildering.

Alas, the forum has been set with this short précis. This is genuinely a journey for all, and if One Sailing is to work, then the time for questioning, consideration, pondering, idea development and ultimately deployment, is well and truly now.

There is a corollary here. New vessels are brought on in a two-year cycle, so the amount of change that is coming down the pipe has a critical mass akin to an iceberg colliding with a ship. In some ways, the very survival of the sport demands that the strategic focus for five and ten years hence acknowledges this fact and prepares all hands with the skills and equipment to do better than just stay afloat, but to prosper. Got something to say under the very guidelines articulated here? Please email us

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