Some boating clubs might be feeling the pinch but not all of them. As Magheramore reveals there is one club with two dozen boats freely available for 400 members to use on a 'first come first served' basis. It is a budget model Irish sailing clubs might do well to study.
There is a club a few miles from the capital that owns 25 boats. These boats are freely available to all 400 club members at any time during the season. The rules are simple; no pre-booking, first-come-first-served, boats are signed out and signed back in, and any damage must be reported. This system has worked well for over 70 years!
Maintenance is carried out by members during off-season work parties. However, little work is actually needed. The boats are tough, fittings are robust, so that the only work needed is a coat of wood preserver on the thwarts and rubbing strakes, and the odd touch up to the gel-coat. It should be pointed out that these are standard boats, not beefed-up "club" versions. Boats are replaced at the rate of about one or two boats per year. The older boats are usually sold off to club members.
The fleet has been built up over the years. Both increased numbers of boats, and renewal of the fleet are financed out of club subscriptions., which are modest to say the least. This year, adult membership is only 55 euro!
The club does not run a bar, but there is a comfortable club room for meetings, or waiting for the rain to pass over.
Unsurprisingly, with membership limited by the lease at 400 adult members, there is a long waiting list. However, the club handles this waiting list in exemplary fashion. Children of members, if they have joined as junior members, automatically become full members after they reach 18. Prospective new members must apply. Applications to join the waiting list are only possible when the committee decides that all on the current waiting list are about to be admitted to the club. After a short application period (which tests potential members integration into local networks as they have to learn that the list is open) the names of all applicants are put into a hat, the first name drawn is first on the waiting list.
It can take some years to be offered membership, depending on turnover, as members leave, or forget to renew. The membership secretary is ruthless when it comes to the due date for annual subscriptions. It is no good bringing out the traditional excuses – the cheque may be in the post, but your membership has gone, and you must re-apply.
This description may sound to good to be true. Yet this club has been operating on the same basis for over 70 years. One might ask why national sailing organisations, the yachting press and other clubs are not promoting this model of club organisation. The answer is simple: did I ever say this was a sailing club? In fact it is an angling club, exclusively dedicated to fly-fishing for trout in a series of lakes not that far from Dublin.
This is yet another example where different groups who all believe, in their own way that "there is nothing – absolutely nothing – half as much worth doing as simply messing about in boats", seem to have little or no contact. Yet we all have much to learn, and we may have more in common than we think. The club I have presented here has solved, in its own way, the problem of how to get on the water without owning a boat.
Personally, I would welcome the idea of a sailing club with a fleet of robust but fun boats freely available to members. Membership might be slightly more than 55 euro per year, but it would be interesting to study the economics of such a structure. As it is, we seem to be settling in to a long period in which many sailors will not be envisaging buying a new boat, or indeed any boat. – Magheramore
