LAUNCHING SITES

In the winter bulletin, the President invited comment on a proposal by some members that the Association should publish a guide to launching. I am convinced that exchanging information on launching-sites is the most useful way in which we can help each other.

After all, most experienced sailors have their own ideas about such matters as boat handling, and might even (perish the thought) disagree with others who are equally experienced; but, when we want to take advantage of our boat's trailability by exploring somewhere new, local knowledge becomes virtually indispensable.

On the other hand, we already have a channel for sharing information - this bulletin. I hope I may congratulate both you and Peter Bick on the excellence of the winter bulletin, which showed what can be achieved when members contribute enough copy.

If the bulletin were ever to fail for lack of contributions, could we have any confidence that a separate guide would not suffer in the same way? As the bulletin shows no sign of failing, would we be wise to go to all the trouble of setting up a parallel system?

Bill Sweet