Dear Editor,

Before I am banished as a heretic and cast into outer darkness for being guilty of being a member of the “Yacht class”, perhaps I could just say a few words in reply to Jim Smith’s letter in the summer Bulletin about split membership.

He is suggesting that all members who have a boat with a lid be downgraded, be milked for a larger subscription, and be deprived of any say in the running of the organisation. Who wants to be a second class citizen like this? His motive appears to be the pursuit of purity — quote “to get back to being a genuine dinghy cruising outfit” unquote. He obviously yearns for the days of the old pioneers, thrashing down channel in their heavy clinker-built boats, gaff rigged with canvas sails and sisal and thick with the smell of Stockholm tar. These were the “real dinghy cruisers”. Heaven forbid that they would ever have been seen floating around an estuary in a pansy plastic tub, disporting a stinking outboard on the transom, with synthetic sails strung from a flimsy tin pole, and, horror of horrors, having a despised lid on it!

Why doesn’t Jim Smith go the whole hog on his purity kick and relegate all fibreglass boats, with motors, terylene sails, metal masts, roller reefing, gas stoves, bilge keels, synthetic ropes, plastic buckets, Tupperware boxes and soft toilet paper! He could then propose to change the name to the Genuine Dinghy Cruising Association!

Let me now return from the realms of the fantastic and dwell for a moment on the practical aspect of having a cabin boat. I own a Drascombe Longboat Cruiser — a 21’ 9” gunter yawl with a small two berth cabin. Besides being a marvellous sailing boat I bought it for two major reasons: a) it has a huge cockpit, and b) it has some form of permanent shelter.

When you have family with three young children I think these points are indispensable. The sea can be a frightening place when the weather blows up and the shelter and protection that our cabin provides keeps my inexperienced crew warm, dry and happy. Having youngsters aboard is quite an extra responsibility whatever the weather, but to see a frightened child huddled cold, damp and petrified in the bottom of an open boat, beating into a Force 5, is no fun at all. They would probably be put off boats for life. We obviously choose our weather carefully, but one can’t dodge a dusting for ever.

Don’t we go out sailing to enjoy ourselves? Feats of endurance in foul weather are okay with a tough crew, or if you only have yourself to worry about. I’m afraid, Jim, that prejudices about open boats have to take second place where a family crew is concerned.

Surely the reason that anyone joins and remains a member of the D.C.A. even when they have a small cabin craft is that they find the aims, the style and the approach of the Association broadly covers their own enjoyment and aspirations of sailing. Jim Smith made this point very well in his letter when he talked about “our amateur approach to the sailing game”, which I am sure many members would agree is the whole essence of the D.C.A.

Looking through the membership list you will not find a proliferation of Westerly Centaurs or Nicholsons. It is hard to find anything much bigger than about 22’ which I think in some ways goes to show that we do not attract the run-of-the-mill cruising fraternity, and that those members who have moved on to genuine cruising yachts do not remain members.

Good though the Little Ship Club is for the sort of people it caters for, it really has no attraction for the average D.C.A. member. I know, I used to be a member till last year. Besides, their subscription is £20 per year.

This subject will undoubtedly attract bags of correspondence, which will be marvellous as far as swelling the Bulletin is concerned, but I hope that it doesn’t degenerate into a “them and us” situation. Every member has something to contribute to the D.C.A. whatever type of boat he has. Snobbery is quite unnecessary. Our members tend to be highly individual types but most of us are bound by one common factor — that the D.C.A. is the voice and the expression of the type of sailing we enjoy. Charles Proudfoot