As apparently imitation is the sincerely form of flattery, I read with interest Paul Cayard’s account of how the St Francis YC in San Francisco reacted to the pandemic; primarily I wanted to see if there were things they did that we hadn’t thought of or could have done better. Much of the report (with apologies to Seahorse readers who may have read the article themselves) details their response to the economic impact of closures, restrictions on social activities and the like. Of course, apart from in NZ where anyone watching the AC 36 sees with envy the Kiwis’ ability to congregate in large groups, not a face mask in sight, this impact has been faced by almost every club in every country. Paul Cayard describes it as a “Big Life” occurrence. However, in the midst of shutting down operations and cancelling events, it is important to shift our mindset away from purely local difficulties; Paul stresses that in facing such a significant health issue which is confronting the entire world, we need to also consider our wider-reaching social responsibilities and when we start opening up again, instead of just pressing a re-set button to get back on track with our Club activities, we need to think about how to do things better.
Sailing does need to be more environmentally responsible. Anyone who has been to an international youth event in the past decade will have seen the legions of RIBs and other support boats, sometimes twenty-deep at the refuelling dock at the end of the day’s racing. We have done our own small baby steps with being one of the first places in Bermuda not to use plastic straws (but our bar staff still automatically give a straw, without asking the patron whether they want one or not, so that still generates waste – just burnable waste instead of more plastics to be disposed of; in fairness, with members no longer allowed to go to the bar to order drinks, it does make it more difficult to communicate directly with the barman, but I digress). At many regattas over the past few years, the Notice of Race or the accompanying information will clearly state that competitors and officials are required to bring their own reusable water bottles as single-use plastic bottles will not be allowed; but that same regatta will add plastic sachets of mayonnaise or plastic cutlery to the packed lunches, which makes one suspect they are following a script rather than actually thinking about the environmental aspects of their operations.
Back to Paul…. Part of SFYC’s post-Covid dawning was the realisation, as they rebuilt their operations from the bottom up, that they had to get rid of “sacred cows” and create a new club, custom-made to the needs of their membership and nothing more. He says that: “In all long-running organisations there are projects, offerings and even people that just aren’t needed and rarely is the courage found to really clean house and focus all the activity and expenses on what is truly required.” Indeed, food for thought.
Our Club has been in existence since 1882; that’s 140 years next year. We hope it will be around for at least another 140-odd years, so whilst 2020 will go down in history as one of the strangest and most disruptive years of our lives, over the life of our Club, it will soon be just a blip on the radar – let’s make sure that management of this blip makes the right decisions for the future of the Club. To finish with another of Paul’s pearls of wisdom: when the blip on the radar indicates a serious cold front ahead, one can take action to avoid the front; but when you are at sea in the middle of a serious cold front, it’s all hands on deck.
Elspeth Weisberg
Commodore
January 13, 2021