A number of new members have asked why we do not produce our own guide to launching sites, and there has even been a discussion about this on the Openboat Internet forum hosted by our very own Johnny Adams.

Each time anyone asks about a DCA launching site guide I give them a standard response: which is that the Association did once produce such a guide, some time ago now, but we found that the job of keeping it up to date was beyond our resources. New members would blithely treat it as gospel truth, (as well they might with our name on the cover), and turn up at a recommended slipway, only to find it dug up, cut off from the sea by a concrete breakwater or padlocked off with a big “private” sign standing guard. Then they would complain and ask us what sort of fly-by-night, ramshackle organisation we thought we were? So we gave it up as a bad job, and told everyone that the commercially produced “Where To Launch Your Boat” may not come with our imprimatur, but was still a decent publication, all things considered.

Yet new members are still wanting our launching sites guide, and asking what sort of fly-by-night, ramshackle organisation we are for not producing one. Indeed one member is so distressed by the lack of such a publication that he has volunteered to try to put one together. It can be too risky for a society like the DCA to thwart the enthusiasm of individual members by dismissing member’s initiatives because they have already been tried and failed, or because we do not do things that way, and are unwilling to change. I hope that no one reading this feels that the DCA is not open to new ideas. We may sometimes be cautious with our member’s money, we may debate matters long and hard at the AGM, we may even write strong letters to this Bulletin — but that is what makes us the vital, exciting bunch that we undoubtedly are — stalwart people to a man or woman.

So I feel that we should look again at the idea of producing a launching sites guide. But we should not leave the job to one person. I hope that everyone could contribute details of a favourite launching site. Then someone with experience of the region area should sift through the suggestions to produce a shortlist of the best sites in the area. This will keep the bulk of the publication down and ease the horrendous job of keeping it up to date in the years to come. What one needs when visiting a new sailing area is not a particularly long list of launching sites, but the select few that the locals have found to be the best, taking into account all the salient issues of tidal availability, decent parking, location and cost.

So we need some experienced members to volunteer to be the regional slipway monitors for various parts of the country: people with local knowledge who would know for instance that a particular slipway can be unusable in certain combinations of wind and sea — which could easily blow up over a weekend’s cruise. To them would also have to fall the job of keeping up to date with parking arrangements, the diverting of rivers, the creation of tidal barriers, mysterious locked chains that turn up overnight and all the myriad things that can affect the use of a slipway.

I propose that we should discuss this matter at the AGM in January. And as always the correspondence columns of this publication are open for your comments.