GP14 have you looked at one lately?

I've passed through dinghy sailing from club racing to national championships, spent my time team racing (which is highly undervalued btw) and competed as one of the happy participants who if he got anywhere like half way up a fleet would say it's been a good day on the water.  I have a very positive relationship with sailing in general, but I look at a lot of 'dinghy racing' at club level and think holy sh*t, how soulless and depressing... it's just not moved on with the times.  Which is why I've spent cash chopping and changing boats to try and inject some excitement into the free time I've spent doing it- in the main I've been okay only losing natural depreciation, so it hasn't cost as much as people might assume.  And to a level this has been successful- if you can commit to circuit events like the MPS or RS series then there's some awesome sociable, multi-level racing available in some pretty cool boats- not all of which are 'extreme'.  (have a go in a Vareo open meeting... it's great fun) 

Now I think it's fair to say there are progressive clubs out there and if I lived a stone's throw from Hayling Island, Stokes Bay, Parkstone, Rutland or Datchet then I'd have no problem finding a boat that I would personally enjoy racing week in week out- I like asymmetric single handers, which I accept is a little niche, but hardly 'out there' like a foiling moth.  But sadly I don't live near those places, so while circuit racing is a time luxury I presently don't have, all that's open to me is club racing... in old boring boats around cats cradle processions they call races.

Now these old boring boats might suit the locals doing the conga 3 times a sunday- most are in their late forties or fifties, if not older.  They probably enjoy the time away from the weekend chores, their nagging wives and/or shunting a trolley around Tesco... but imo it's a ticking time bomb for a community sport...   now if those folks were out there protecting the interests of the younger generation by promoting modern, easy to use, easy to maintain boats, then that'd be a good thing, well I think it would... after all generations before them embraced the trapeze on the fireball, even the toe straps in the Mirror... they invested in a future back then, that we seem reluctant to do now.

Our current sailing culture would rather spend ten grand on a pimped up old design to improve their handicap position or buy their way up a fleet.  Not everyone approaches it in such a Machiavellian manner, but there's enough tide to change the dynamics of the dinghy market and we all get hooked in, folk even believe there old wooden GP is just as competitive as the new plastic ones.... even I've spent £8k on a Phantom- wtf????  You can bunch these up as 'Lipstick Classes'... you all know which ones I mean, just check out the P&B brochure.

But there are boats and people out there who are striving to offer something better and could potentially appeal to the future of this sport... the Icon would be a great family racer, as well as providing enough weight tolerance to take a mate out. I would love to think there were 10 of them at the local pond to race against in a couple of years when my daughter's big enough to hold a jib sheet.  Who knows, when she's older maybe we'd move on to an Alto to spice it up a bit, again another new entrant I hope makes a success of itself.... sadly the current 'route' at my club would be Miracle... m'eh, followed by Fireball... double m'eh.  So forgive me when I say, as a parent, I won't even bother to introduce dinghies into the mix unless things change (or we move to the coast, unlikely in the medium term...)  

It's just a really weird... perhaps you need to step outside and look in to appreciate it.  It's easy to knock GRF's views, I do it a fair bit in the name of banter, but he's got a lot of very good points about sports marketing and community sports underneath that 'guff'.  As for my views, take 'em or leave 'em, I really don't care.  If you find them offensive it is because there are grains of truth that it grates against, but take comfort in the fact I accept that I am in the minority and that I doubt anything I say will make one jot of difference to the (limited and restricted) future of the sport.