Do fewer members go for extended cruises these days? There was a time when I left my boat at anchor in the creek I reached on Sunday evening, went home by train, and returned the following Friday to continue the cruise. Rallies might be cruises in company; when I first got away from the polluted Thames (a mooring at Greenwich Yacht Club just where the Dome now is) it was to rendezvous with Eric Coleman's Aurora II at Havengore Bridge and carry on to explore the Crouch. In those days there used to be arguments in the Bulletin about the merits of sleeping aboard and camping ashore - but camping did not mean day sailing from a campsite. It meant getting ashore across the mud with all the gear, and pitching tent in a nearby field or on the sea wall. True we have a several stalwarts who achieve long distance coastal cruises and sea-crossings. South Coast rallies are attended by sea from venues all over the Solent area - what a rally ought to be, probably. The trailer-sailers in other areas usually demand a launching and recovery place and convenient camp site, from which we day-sail. Could more of us arrange real sleep-aboard cruising?

I have called for a break in the great CAPSIZE debate, though more contributions await future issues. In this one there is a report of the useful RIGHTING rally. I still worry though. The experiments are said to have given confidence to the participants. Racing dinghies, usually crewed by the young and fit are sailed to be capsized and righted as a matter of course. Heavy dinghies and cruising dinghies loaded with gear, out at sea and alone, really are in a different category. We OUGHT to be frightened. Should I give up dinghy cruising because I am not confident that I could recover the boat and get back aboard? What we need is a discussion about how to make pretty sure that the boat will stay right way up. Not 100% sure - there's always some risk. But it's much more dangerous to drive to a rally on busy roads than to go to sea in the right conditions in a well-found dinghy.

Please respond to the following request for someone to succeed David Jones as Secretary. We owe a great deal to the work he has done over the years. JA