Growing a Fleet: For Merrily

Rob B

Rob B

Well-Known Member
So Merrily is working her tail off to get some local Laser sailing going. Reading her posts inspired me to try the same in my area.

My "private" YC has about 17 active Lasers. This is a 100% increase in the past year and a half. My '98 hull is the 3rd oldest boat in our fleet.

We are located in the Southeast on the coast smack dab between Charleston, SC and Savannah, GA. Our "private" fleet is the most active fleet in at least a 200 mile radius. So, my goal is to get all of the other boats from "fragmented" areas to come sail with us at our club.

I have a great advantage in that my club opens up it's Spring and Fall series races to non-members, (for just a little more in regatta fees) and my club is allowing me to have some "open" frostbite races, (which are free to all that want to sail or come watch).

This is great PR for my club and will bring more $$$'s in series fees as well as possibly attract new club members.

The key now is communication. We all know snail mail sucks as it is slow, hard to put together and expensive. In the past 2 days I developed a local e-mail distribution group to inform anyone and everyone that wants to be on it of all of our events. Last night my first e-mail was sent to 15 known addresses. I've asked everyone on it to forward it to a friend and ad them to the list. Today I sent my second one to 24 addresses as people responded to my e-mail from yesterday and said, "Hey, so and so told me about your deal. Ad me to it!". Looks like I got dialed into a couple of High School Sailing Teams. One from Charleston and one from Savannah.

The next few weekends will be telling as we have one more frostbite day with an on shore riging session and April 2nd kicks off our spring series.

I'll keep you posted on how well this works. The 24hr response has been good so far.
 
Rob B said:
I'll keep you posted on how well this works. The 24hr response has been good so far.
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Wow, you've got some interesting ideas. Please keep us posted and good luck!
 
Our club is up to 35 Lasers, and our e mail list is about 95. Here are more ideas:

Every race is open, so Lasers can drive in and rig/launch on race day. Weekend regattas have a charge, for food etc. Weeknight races are free.

We have a 150./yr Laser only membership, which lets them store on our rack.

We find and advertise local boats and/or parts for sale, hold newbee and wannabee clinics, and usually have a loaner available.

Get good RC, and hold lots of races each day or night. Good lines are critical, and we use the 3 min. horn box. Teach respect for the RRS but assume it takes people a while.

Tune up next to the newbee's to help get them up to speed. After finishing, watch the last few boats finish, then give them tips such as hike flatter, tighter traveler, two-block harder, etc.

Keep it fun!

Al Russell 182797
 
Al, good points and ideas. We are doing some similar things. We have an "Ollie" start box and for the first time ever our club started using the 3 min sequence for our Frostbite series. I for one, love the 3 min deal. We have 2 loaner boats, but they do not get much use. Boats that have have changed hands have stayed in the club during the past year as people bought 2006 hulls. We're holding our first shore session "tune up" guiide this weekend followed up by racing. I really like the Laser only membership dues. I'm wondering about JR dues?
 
Yah the "Ollie" start boxes are great. we personally dont have alot of weekend races and weekday racing but we do have the treasure coast series which was really successful.
 
An self-contained automated timer with sound signals - developed by Ollie Wallock (a great guy btw, he and John Christanson have done more to help sailing with their simple ideas then most IMHO)

It frees up having to have a person do the timing on RC - Well worth the money if you can afford it....

http://www.ecohsystems.com/ollieTestimonials.htm
 
The Ollie wallock race starter is a great thing to have. Well worth the investment. Remote starters have been around for a long time. Out in Worcester Massachusetts on Lake Quinsiggamond (sp?) they had one wired up in the club back 40 years ago. I don't know why more yc. and race folks don't use them. My brother, who's heavily into underwater marine electronics and I put together one that is no bigger than a small lunch box but puts out a 120 db programed blast that wakes up the dead. It's nice for reliability and also for coaching ( and it saves on the lungs).
Not recommended to jury rig a unit if you don't have the experience since you are dealing with electricity and water. Definitley go with the proven unit. Ollie's is the best.
One less thing to worry about.
 
49208 said:
An self-contained automated timer with sound signals -
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Oh, we have one of those at our club. I just never heard it called that before. The club member who made ours is an electrical engineer.
 
They are great things to have. But they have been known to die in the middle of a start sequence. They were once having a the highschool team racing championship and it died at the last signal to start so the RC was yelling at all the kids and telling them to go. it was pretty funny.
 
Update: Folks like the e-mail list/newsletter thing and we're up to 26 on our list. We had 12 boats show up each day for 2 frostbite race days. Our first day of the Spring Series is behind us now and we had 15 boats on the line. All were from our club. About 7 more than this time last year. The fleet is pretty tight, definately aggressive and eager. Hopefully, we'll see some out of towners take interest in the next couple of weeks.
 
Rob B said:
Update: Folks like the e-mail list/newsletter thing and we're up to 26 on our list. We had 12 boats show up each day for 2 frostbite race days. Our first day of the Spring Series is behind us now and we had 15 boats on the line. All were from our club. About 7 more than this time last year. The fleet is pretty tight, definately aggressive and eager. Hopefully, we'll see some out of towners take interest in the next couple of weeks.
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What's the water temp where you are Rob? Not a lot of people showed up at our club to sail on the first day. Cold water jitters, I guess. I was the only Laser, and since a gust holed the boat on the dock, I didn't get to sail. Wah-wah-wah! :rolleyes:
 
Well. We're in the South. Water is up to 61 and air temp was like 80. Breeze was SE 8-15. So, hard not to want to sail. I wore Lycra pants, top and life jacket. Nothing foul about this weather.
 
Rob B said:
Well. We're in the South. Water is up to 61 and air temp was like 80. Breeze was SE 8-15. So, hard not to want to sail. I wore Lycra pants, top and life jacket. Nothing foul about this weather.
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:D You have a lot of nerve calling that frostbiting!
 
Reach out and touch people one at a time. Every time someone who has raced before, doesn't show up, they should hear from you: "Sorry we missed you last week, we had a great time, anything we can do to make it easier / more fun?" Make sure your fleet is posted on the class association website. Have an informative website for your fleet that is encouraging. Flog the fleet here and on the Masters mailing list. Good luck!
 
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