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Regenerating the Fleet - The hidden page
The Draycote Water Fireball Fleet ten years ago was in a situation close to terminal, with no more
than 6 boats racing of which probably only 3 would sail on any given day. However, the fleet had declined of its own accord, rather than being trounced by any other class, and we still had a large number of boats in
the boat park, the owners having given up sailing for a variety of reasons. Now we are a strong fleet again, with 40+ boats on the bank, 30+ racing and up to 20+ on the water on any given day. We are however still
not as strong as I would like or feel is possible.
Listed below are a number of strategies which we have employed over the past years, along with a guesstimate
as to how effective they were. Because Draycote is not necessarily the same as other clubs, some of these ideas may be more or less effective for you. Draycote is a good Fireballing place because it offers primarily
fleet racing rather than handicap racing, over various conventional courses, never windward-leeward or olympic. We have 700 acres to play with, which is enough to allow a Fireball to really get going, but the water
never really looks big enough for 49ers, Laser 5000s and Boss classes. This does not explain the lack of Laser 4000s etc, although the strong fleet structures and lack of windward-leeward courses will have helped
here. All the following ideas have been tried, but it is fair to say that success breeds success, and the majority of newcomers to the fleet over the past few years have arrived with little or no prior encouragement
from the fleet captain. But you have to start somewhere, and the place to start is at the bottom, with the new sailors and the dodgy old boats. The new sailors will be the most amenable to your advice, and have the
least money to spend as a result of being unsure how long term their interest in sailing is going to be. At Draycote, new members may have just completed an RYA course, or they may simply walk into the office and
pay their fees. At this point, the Draycote establishment promptly loses all interest in them and they are left in limbo with no idea of what to do next. It is at this stage that they need to be contacted by
somebody who has a boat and is interested in their future. Somebody with a Fireball, for example….
- This encompasses all the following points, but it can be as simple as just talking to potential members in a manner which suggests that you are
very enthusiastic about the Fireball fleet's continued success and long term future, without sounding like a loony or a desperate double glazing salesman.
- Important for:Not looking all washed up
- Rating 7/10
- Potential members pop up all over the place particularly members new to the club or to sailing. Hunt them down at club training courses
and offer them a ride. Ask them what they think they want, and give them an honest appraisal of whether the Fireball is right for them. If you think they would be better off with a Solo, say so and move on -
your time is limited. If they don't fancy racing you probably don't need them either - cruising Fireballs are not much use when building a fleet. If they are in the 'two-person / young - middle aged / looking
for fun sailing and racing' bracket, there is no reason why they should not want a Fireball. Check their budget and give them the sales spiel appropriate:
- Low budget:Fireballs for around £500 offer a fantastic amount of boat and performance for your money. You can pull bits off derelict
boats (assuming there are any of course) to mend them, and anybody wanting to get into performance dinghy sailing really ought to start with something which won't devalue too much when they prang it. Obviously
the Fireball is the most stable and forgiving performance dinghy you can buy, and the Fleet Captain will show them how to rig and sail it (this is a huge selling point).
- Medium budget:£2,500 plus will get you a composite Winder, with a hull which is arguably faster than the wide-bow white articles on
inland waters. A ten year old boat can win races at club level.
- Big budget:Buy a white Winder but you are unlikely to come across anyone who is this doshed up and is asking your opinion.
- Given the dubious build quality and overweight nature of some of the Fireball's competition, you should have no trouble selling Fireballing to
anyone on a small to medium budget. Our target market will always jump at the chance of cheap boat if the fleet captain says it looks OK.
- Important for:Getting new members
- Rating 8/10
- Stick up-to-date useful info on the fleet noticeboard, along with race series results showing who is winning. If your club has a newsletter
which carries fleet news, ensure that you've always written a big chunk of it. Talk up any positive stuff, like welcoming new members, mentioning good turnouts or events.
- Important for:Making the fleet look alive
- Rating 4/10
- Stick an interesting but not too scary colour picture of a Fireball entitled 'Fancy a go ?' on the training noticeboard to encourage all and
sundry to come and try one. Stick another one up in the training room, and anywhere else you can get away with it. Include some stuff about how great the boat is, your contact phone number and a time when anyone
can turn up on a whim (say after the last race on a Sunday). Take people out in a decent boat and let them helm if it is not too windy.
- Important for:Getting to talk to potential fleet members
- Rating 5/10
- We all know that the wooden and fibreglass stuff isn't as fast as the foam sandwhich stuff. So create 'A' and 'B' fleets, make the 'A' fleet
start about 5 minutes after the 'B' fleet (if possible) and/or score them separately so that people with old boats are in with a chance. The wooden boats are your best chance to regenerate the fleet, so you must
cater for people who own them.
- Important for:Good competition
- Rating 6/10
- What with all these new classes coming along, Fireball prices have taken a hit recently. Nobody has a clue what a boat numbered under 13,000 is
worth, so tell people to expect to pay no more than £700 for a good specimen, falling away to under £100 for something earlier than 12,000 which 'needs a bit of work doing'. No wooden boat is ever worth more
than £1,000
(actually, some are, but we won't let that worry us). Composite Winders are worth £1,000 to £3,000 and no more. Fibreglass boats max at £700 for a really nice one. This won't make you very popular with the vendor, but a cheap boat sells a lot quicker than a pricey one. Being cheap is our one big advantage, so make it happen.
- Important for:Getting new people into the fleet
- Rating 6/10
- Don't bother trying to cajole people who don't sail much into coming more often; it never works. Wait until they give up or fail to register
the boat with the club, and then ask if you can help them to sell it. Make sure they realize it's not worth very much (too old, no demand, see point 6), and now you can actively try to flog it to the next
potential member you meet. Only now, it's a bargain.
- Important for: Getting new people into the fleet
- Rating 7/10
- The biggest problem for most people who are looking for a boat is that they can't spend enough time sailing a boat before they buy to know if
it is right for them or not. Dig a plastic pig out of the mud for £100 maximum, and kit it out with all those old bits that you and the rest of the fleet have got lying around. We got 2 suits of sails, a rudder
and a load of fittings donated by various fleet members. Insure it 3rd party only (£25). Now you can let those undecided punters loose in the thing without worrying about it, plus fleet members can use it when their boat is off the water.
- The trouble with this idea is that even a plastic boat needs maintaining, and the people who use it are unlikely to be able to rig it or even
tie it down properly, so you need to put big effort into keeping it working. Also, you can't charge for its use as the insurance won't permit this, so you must rely on 'donations' from the users to fund the
thing. If your club runs training boats and RYA courses, they may be interested in helping with the upkeep and insurance in return for being allowed to use it.
- Important for: Getting new people into the fleet
- Rating 5/10
- You have to accept that most people are not going to turn up every weekend. It has become a fact of life that even the keenest sailors just
can't commit to that. So run the special events on a fortnightly basis. This includes your fleet championships and all the other short series that you organise. Hopefully the fact that it is a special event will
coax more people into coming on the relevant day, and the fact that it is fortnightly means that they can get brownie points in the intervening weekend and turn up for the next day in the series. Don't bother
with more than about 3 special events per year.
- Important for:Good competition
- Rating 4/10
- If the club newsletter only comes out once a year, it is no use. Write your own and post them to fleet members and anyone who ever sails a
Fireball. One sheet of A4 printed both sides is sufficient for all our news. We do three per year, each one coming out roughly one month ahead of some important event such as the AGM, Fleet championships,
Prizegiving evening etc. Race results, forthcoming events and gossip fill the gaps. Don't expect anyone to ever say anything nice about these. For examples, log on to www.draycotewater.co.uk/fleets/fireball . This worked well for us, as we had a large dormant membership and this woke them up a bit. If you don't have dormant members, it's of less use.
- Important for:Keeping your members informed and improving their perception of the fleet.
- Rating 5/10
- Something which explains the benefits of Fireballing and offers to help a new member to get started, and contains your phone number. Do thirty
of these and leave them with the club secretary with instructions to give one to everyone who enquires about joining the club. New members often perceive the club to be a big unfriendly thing, and any offer of
help makes them more likely to (a) join the club and (b) allow you to talk them into a Fireball.
- The booklet could be provided by the UKFA of course, couldn't it ? No ? Oh, OK then…
- Important for:Getting new people into the fleet
- Rating 6/10
- Or better still, get a good chunk of the club's website and make it clear that Fireballs are still going strong at your club. Ensure that you
have links to and from other relevant sites, in particular the UKFA. Don't put in anything that requires updating too often.
- Important for:Getting new people into the fleet
- Rating 2/10
- Helms and crews rarely turn up as a job lot. So keep a list of people who wouldn't buy a Fireball but expressed an interest in crewing one, and
try to tie them up with new helm ASAP. New potential crews will get bored and give up if they don't get at least one sail every four weeks, so even if you can only get prospective crews an occasional ride, it's
worth it. Likewise, if you can get an existing helm to sail more than twice a year by providing a keen new crew, you've just improved your turnout. If you get two or more potential crews and run out of helms,
talk one into helming and find them a nice cheap boat to buy. Nobody turns down a £250 boat if you sell it properly.
- Important for:Getting new people into the fleet
- Rating 5/10
- All these new Fireballers are going to need a lot of encouragement before they can even sail the boat competently. Organised training never
seems to hit the spot, so make a point of talking to them regularly and finding out what aspect of their progress is bugging them right now. Then help them sort it out. This invariably means giving up your
sailing time (or lunch time) to crew for them.
- Important for:Keeping new members
- Rating 6/10
- Fireball builders have long ago ironed out all the weak spots in the design of the boat and spars, and modern Fireball construction techniques
are as good as (and usually better than) anything that the competition can come up with. Be aware that ISOs devalue like mad, Laser 4000s are too heavy, 3000s are just for kids, RS boats break masts and fold up
or whatever. Also be aware that there were only 3 less Fireballs made last year than Laser 4000s, which is sod-all difference and not the kind of figures that suggest that Fireballs are on the way out. Stress
that the Fireball is the only performance dinghy which you can buy into for under £800 (big value) and then sell on with little depreciation so you can trade up to a foam-sandwich job which offers near-as-dammit
one-design racing. Stress that the Fireball is a proper boat, not just a racing machine, and that your fleet is a distinct organisation which is there primarily to help Fireball sailors (at most clubs,
asymetrics are part of a fast handicap fleet which never seems to have any fleet structure or fleet captain).
- Important for:Irritating the asymmetric sailors
- Rating 5/10
- We try to persuade all our Fireball sailors to join the fleet (£10 per boat per year) and the UKFA. At present only just over half of them are
fleet members and a (presumably) smaller number are in the UKFA. Because a large percentage of our members are sailing on a shoestring budget, we never try to force them to join either organization. They receive
the newsletters, invitations to social and sailing events etc regardless. We don't give prizes to anyone who has not paid fleet subs on the basis that these things have been paid for by the rest of us, but apart
from that we make no exclusions. We can't afford to.
- Important for:Keeping existing members
- Rating 5/10
Ed says - some of this stuff is a bit out of date now, bear in mind it was written 6 years ago. I have updated the first paragraph but not much else.
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