Starting a new fleet?

L

Laser of the Corn

Member
Right now I'm sailing on a predominately scow lake. Myself and another guy are trying to get a fleet of Lasers started at our lake for a number of reasons.

1. Our club is an ageing club and we are losing members at a steady rate. Scows aren't exactly the most affordable of boats. (I currently race E scows, a competitive E is worth about 4 brand new Lasers) I figure a more affordable boat might attract new members?

2. Keeping juniors sailing in a competitive enviroment. Right now they go from the X boat usually to an MC. That's one heck of a jump, 99% of the time, they get there butts kicked for years until they are big enough to control the MC.

3. My own selfish reason, I'm tired of travelling for racing. Yeah I can race the E here but in order to race my laser I've got to travel at least 120 miles.

Anyone that might have some ideas on how to convince a bunch of scow sailors to give the Laser a go and how to go about getting new members to think about a Laser please reply.

Thanks in advance,

Dan
 
It depends on what kind of racing is already going on, but one way is to pitch the Laser as a second boat for existing sailors.

Highlight the strengths of quick to rig, don't need crew, etc. Then start some events that play to those strengths but don't conflict with existing schedules (Wednesday night racing, Tuesday Night race clinics, frost biting, etc.)

If you use that to build a core fleet, you will then start to attract Laser-only sailors who will then hopefully push for inclusion in other club events.
 
I was actually thinking of doing the racing Thursday nights. Scows sail on the weekends and right now we have a strong group of Hobies that sail on Thursday nights.
 
or what you and the other guy could do is buy a bunch of beat up lasers, fix em up and use them as club boats that way they are easily accessible and any club member can use them. Also you might want to make a deal with a few sailors like if they buy a Laser themselves they get into regattas free for that year
 
I went thru the club yearbook and found everyone who was listed as owning a Laser, then sent out an email trying to get them out for Thursday night racing. Then after the Thursday night series ended I started a Tuesday night series and bought beer every night. So far I have a bunch of Sunfish and 4-5 Lasers after a few weeks of sailing. Its been so hot here that I think now that its cooled off and we have some wind again, we will see more of those guys who said they were interested in getting on thier Lasers again.

My solution...Beer, and some letter writing
 
Laser of the Corn said:
I was actually thinking of doing the racing Thursday nights. Scows sail on the weekends and right now we have a strong group of Hobies that sail on Thursday nights.
Click to expand...

That's a really powerful suggestion. Over time there seems to be a bigger and bigger trend towards weeknight racing as families have busier weekends driven by kid-family activities such as little-league filling their schedules.

If there's a powerful scow presence on weekends, you could pick up an entire "disenfranchised sailor" population of folks who used to sail on weekends but are now too busy, with the appeal of the easy-to-rig-single-hander laser.
 
I think if I did it right I would get a lot of "cross over" from other fleets. Not stealing them from the other fleets but getting them to sail both boats. Another huge thing would be the kids and those parents of kids. Also would be the other group of sailors looking for something to entertain there desire to sail as well as keep the wallet padded a little better than a scow.

I'll tell you one of the hugest problems we have is docking space. The lake is surrounded by houses, we have no real public docking (at least very little), and the racing boats are kept on lifts in the water. Basically we would be sailing off the beach right in front of our club house.
 
I don't think you will have much problem getting a small fleet going. If you have a handful of E scows, (let's assume 5), that is 15 people who are used to sailing a high-performance boat. You need to start asking around the fleet and start looking for boats for people. Compared to an E-scow, a club-level racer is dirt cheap.
If you get 3-4 core members and you can get a start on Thursdays, the rest will see how much fun you are having, and want in on the action.
 
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