Capron explains the way forward for US Sailing

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World on 23 Jun 2008 Mid-week came the news that the Board of the US national authority, US Sailing, had decided to back away from its controversial proposal to make direct membership of the organization mandatory for at least one of the sailors aboard a yacht racing under the ISAF Racing Rules.

The proposal was to do what many countries have done – to introduce a US prescription to a Racing Rule (in this case RRS 46) to make non-compliance the subject of protest by a race committee, or another sailor.

In many countries, the situation is very simple, if you wish to use the ISAF Rules, then you have to be a member of your national authority, be it Yachting New Zealand, Yachting Australia, Fédération Française de Voile, Irish Sailing Association or whatever.

There are various ways of achieving this membership – either through a club membership system where the club is affiliated to the National Authority, and pays a substantial fee, or by a means of direct personal membership of the same National Authority.

Generally the system chosen is dictated by history and geography rather than recent strategic innovation.

Sail-World spoke to US Sailing President Jim Capron, who explained.

'We don’t have the structure that some other countries have where there are clubs all directly affiliated to the national body. In the US the situation is that we have various layers of clubs, and associations and areas. And it isn’t as clean a structure as they have in say Australia, where Yachting Australia have their state associations affiliated to the national body and then all clubs in turn, are affiliated to those state associations.

'Our interim proposal; was for direct membership, and meant that the person in charge and the helm of the boat, would have to be members of US Sailing. Local events intended for training or those intended to bring people into the sport would have been exempt. As time went on there were various other suggestions, inclulding one that would drop the helmspersons and just require the person in charge to be a member.

'The idea is that everyone who are active racing sailors should be supporting their national authorities in some way. That happens worldwide either by direct membership or by being members of affiliated clubs (affiliated directly to the national authority).'

'To date the affiliation with US Sailing has been entirely voluntary', Capron added.

The reaction to the US Sailing proposal was generally one of outrage. A reaction that many outside of the US would have difficulty understanding since membership of the national authority has long been a requirement, for racing sailors.

Keelboats are often the glorious exception where often only the helmsman or skipper, or a person on board the yacht must be a club member (and by affiliation a member of the national authority)

The US has historically run a system of voluntary membership/affiliation, the outcome of this Capron guesstimates that only 10-15% of the racing sailors in the US are actually members of US sailing.

'Over the years we have had a small minority of the racing sailors join US Sailing. Many members of US sailing are those who have to be to remain certified, such as judges and race officers, but not many current racing sailors are actually members of US Sailing', says Capron.

It was the compulsion of the proposal which drew the ire of many.

'After the Board had decided to step back from this initiative, one of my friends from overseas wrote to me saying 'Funny people Americans… ‘I agree I should join, but I’m going to vote against it because you’re making it a requirement’.'

'The difference between 'should' and 'shall' is a huge one, it seems', says Capron.

Another significant difference between the international practice and the US Sailing situation lies in the amount of the direct annual membership fee which is set at $60 per sailor.

'A major US club is considering making everyone a member of US sailing, because they think the membership of US sailing is important to their club as a racing club.'

Capron is quick to point out that the fee has not been arbitrarily increased or set, but has just crept to its current level by virtue of inflation.

'If you take into account inflation, we haven’t raised the dues since 1927. It costs you now in 2008, the same $5 in 1927 terms', he says.

'If we could have mandated the membership of US Sailing, in a couple years I am confident that with the increased membership we could have dropped the dues significantly. The problem is that we couldn’t do anything initially because we were unsure of the level of compliance.

'We weren’t ever going to stand on the docks and check driver’s licenses!'

In a sport which has fairly significant equipment costs, it is somewhat surprising that a matter such as a relatively cheap affiliation fee, can generate such a level of passionate debate. Many would regard $60 spent in a boat shop as a cheap trip. At current prices it is less than a tank of gas in a sailor’s car.

Faced with the intense level of opposition, the Board of US Sailing clearly had no appetite for a fight with its membership, and after some reflection decided a softer, persuasive approach was the better option.

'Sailors have to join all sorts of organizations in order to be able to race', explained Capron. 'The Board felt that we should get beyond spending all our time trying to talk you into being a member and then repeating the exercise the following year to retain your membership.

'When we looked at the costs a few years ago, we were spending about 25% of your membership dues in convincing you to join again the following year. We felt that those funds could be better spent on youth sailing or promoting the sport in the U.S.'

It would also seem that the Board is heading down a path of graduated fees, and that in return for undertakings of increased membership numbers, the relatively high $60 fee could be reduced.

'We had initiated proposals with classes like the U.S. Optimist class where the membership for Optimist sailors would come through the class which would pay $12.50 per sailor, half the current youth membership dues,' said Capron.

'We were never mandating membership for the cruising sailor, who would have remained on voluntary membership. However most were not paying the full $60 either - a local sailing association would negotiate a deal with US Sailing where their sailors would pay a fee of between $35 and $50 to US Sailing. We need membership to help us govern the sport.

'From a U.S. tax perspective, anyone who joins US Sailing at the $60 level gets a tax deductible credit of $45, just they would with other non-profit organizations.'

With an estimated sailing population of around a couple of million in the US, it would seem that only a very small percentage of these are financial members of US Sailing, which Capron says is between 32,000 and 37,000 depending on how a family membership is calculated into the overall figure.

From here it seems that US Sailing will take its Clubs at their word and try a softer approach to build up the membership to a much higher level – which, by extrapolating various statistics and estimates, could be over a hundred thousand racing sailors, similar to the Royal Yachting Association which also runs a voluntary membership scheme.

'We have formed a taskforce from the Board to develop various mechanisms and initiatives to bring in more members into US Sailing,' says the President. 'One of the major clubs in the US is of the view that US Sailing is important to racing, and that racing is important to the club. Even though the club has 1600 members, of whom four or five hundred are active racers, they are considering making everyone a member of US sailing, because they think the