Jun 14 2010
Saving Sailing… and Maybe the World!
In my business, textbooks are hard to come by. But recently, “Saving Sailing”, by Ncholas D. Hayes was published and it should be required reading for anybody involved in sailing. Not just the business sailors. It could have been called Saving Camping or Saving Hunting which have also seen dramatic declines in participation over the past few decades.
What do lifestyles like sailing, camping or hunting require? A natural progression of young people being mentored by older people… each successive generation after one another. Something has to keep the entrance to a lifestyle at the youth level. I validate this with my previous 30+ year career in what was called “The Ski Industry”. It too was on the backside of the bell curve. But miraculously, snowboarding was invented which provided a new way to keep young blood interested in the mountains. That was a lucky break for a big leisure industry and all its real estate developments.
Can sailing be as lucky? Perhaps. But the transference from generation to generation is a trickier nut to crack. Sailing , camping and hunting, for the most part, require that adults and youths comingle for extended periods of time. Skiing really is a solo thing. Sure, the other three can be accomplished solo. But the fun is in the teamwork that get things done.
The book lays out a very compelling argument and challenge to the adult generation of today to change the path that it has been on for a couple decades now. Family sailing is a great lifestyle that is capable of instilling all the wonderful things a parent wishes to see in their child. But today’s family dynamic is pressed for time, so a lifestyle such as family sailing is never consummated. Instead we have our children enrolled in several sports and/or cultural activities in which at best we can only be spectators. That’s not bad. It’s just that for lifestyles like sailing or camping and hunting, it takes our participation and mentorship to keep the ball rolling.
Saving Sailing is well written by someone passionate about our lifestyle sport; sailing. But it digs deeper into the American phenomena and the change it is undergoing. It challenges the reader to reconsider the implications of the path we choose as a culture.
Thanks for the tip and review. I look forward to reading this one.
My dad taught me to sail…we have wonderful memories on boats together.