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  All jokes aside
 | | Sailing - happy times indeed © Lars Wehrmann / Nord Stream Race |
Last week we ran some of the information about Brad McMaster's SailConnect. It's the platform for re-engaging skippers and crew via clubs and their activities, namely aces and regattas. Clearly, and based on your responses, it went well, which is important, for at the very heart of it is a matter we all need to be clear about, and that is participation.
So with all of that in mind, here are some other reasons to go and download the free App for yourself. “We often joke that my five-year-old son's soccer team is managed with more sophistication than the sport of sailing. The concept of whiteboards in the breeze, or ‘dating' websites, where boat and crew meet is broken, for they do not allow for open communication, nor provide a method of engagement. There is no sense of belonging to enable new sailors to return easily, or for existing crew to receive last minute invitations or notifications”, said McMaster.
 | | SailConnect the website |
“Rather than setting and forgetting your ‘availability', on SailConnect you can register your interest in upcoming events to be found first by skippers who need more crew. Skippers know that advertised availabilities quickly go stale, they prefer to call someone that has said they want to sail in a particular event or series.”
What is also interesting is how McMaster came to create SailConnect, which he admits was burning away inside him for a good few years (read almost a decade) before it came to be. In a lot of ways, he embodies the new sailor, stating “Although I was late to sailing, I've crewed and skippered Fastnets, Hobarts and many offshore races, crossed the Atlantic and Pacific, and along the way accumulated something over 40,000nm.”
 | | Any boat, anywhere, anytime - the joy of yachting © Pierpaolo Lanfrancotti / Marine Partners |
McMaster holds an Ocean Yacht Master ticket and was once also an instructor, but it is mobility that may well have been the true catalyst for the App's origins. He moved from Melbourne to the UK, and back again, before then heading to Sydney. As he says, “I know all to well what it is like to arrive in a new city and have to build a new network of boats to sail on, SailConnect would have made that so much easier!”
His review of the way in which we go about ‘managing' the sport of sailing lead him to understand the systemic issues were:
• The challenges around participation and commitment,
• The perceived barriers to entry like clubs, knowledge, equipment, and money
• As well as the outdated communication methods
The plan was to have sailors participate more than the three times a year that seemed to be the norm, or worse, have them drop off the radar all together. McMaster wanted to offer ‘a tremendous service' to boat owners, clubs and the wider sport.
 | | Take your experience with you from boat to boat, location to location... © Alex McKinnon Photography |
The challenge is to have people select sailing as their pastime. Yet as we know, turning up at a club can be a challenging and socially awkward experience. “It is much like your first day at school. We need to empower people with an easy to use platform that promotes their best profile, all the way from ‘I'm a gun sailor from out of town', to ‘It's my first time, and I'm keen to learn'. Importantly, what we are trying to do is empower them to follow up on this first interaction, to go back the next week knowing everyone's name, and feeling like they belong. If we can do this in real-time, from anywhere, then we will have created true Crew Mobility”, said McMaster.
More than a dozen clubs nationwide have already taken up the challenge, and many more are in the process of preparing their events ready to load onto the platform. Oz Sailing is proudly supporting SailConnect in the hope that this can really make a difference to the sport. Let's make it so...
We are transitioning to a new website platform on Tuesday which will lead to a short hiatus in newsletters. In the meantime, go for a wander to review the proverbial plethora of material for you on Sail-World.com from all over the globe. We are here to bring you the whole story and the site will be much faster soon!
John Curnow, Editor, Sail-World AUS
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