The success of a sailing club or class association always seems to boil down to a few energetic and enthusiastic individuals. For as long as they choose to remain involved, the energy and enthusiasm infects the rest of the organisation. The trouble is, everyone moves on eventually, and if they're not being paid then there's probably little you can do to convince them to stay. Unpaid work by these keen enthusiasts has long been the lifeblood of dinghy sailing, and nowhere is it more apparent than in the junior classes where parents are happy to give their time and expertise for free.

Freely-given help is what has sustained the dinghy scene over the decades, but as living in the 21st century seems ever more frenetic and time in ever shorter supply, so too do volunteers appear thinner on the ground. The answer, perhaps, is to follow the lead of some organisations, both sailing clubs and classes, who have hired professional help to keep the momentum going. This is an idea that RYA racing manager John Derbyshire and his colleagues have been considering in recent months, particularly with regard to coaching.

John explains the background to the idea. "We seem to be at a crossroads in the sport where some clubs - predominantly on the south coast where memberships are full and activity is booming - are in a very healthy situation. However there are other clubs where membership is falling, and dinghy racing seems to be struggling as a club activity.

"As a niche activity, things like summer holiday sailing weeks (such as Abersoch Dinghy Week), national championships, handicap events like the Bloody Mary and Tiger Trophy, all seem to be thriving. It's just the club activity where it seems to be more of a struggle. At the same time we've got a growing culture of coaching within the sport, an increasing demand from class associations for structured coaching run by properly qualified coaches. It is more qualification orientated - the parents want it, the clubs want it, and the classes want it."

For John, all these factors provide the background to his main point. "Clearly we need to meet this coaching demand, but we're not quite at the stage where full-time coaching is possible at most clubs. We have coaches on the World Class Programme, but most of them are contracted for 150 days in a year, so they still have time left. Some of them are engaged in their own non-Olympic sailing, or they might provide coaching to other organisations. Sailing clubs or classes could tap into their expertise, and hire them for x number of days a year for example."

To take the idea a step further, John suggests some clubs - particularly the larger Volvo Champion Clubs - might have a full-time coach/instructor employed, in much the same way as many tennis clubs and golf clubs have a resident pro. "We've been round and talked to a number of people already doing this, even if they don't think in terms of themselves of being the ‘club pro'," says John.

John realises that for most club budgets, taking on a full-timer is beyond their means, but he is encouraging anyone interested to come along to the conference for clubs and classes being organised at the forthcoming Dinghy Sailing Show at Alexandra Palace on 3&4 March. "I think the initiative that we've come up with, will fit all clubs if they want it. We think we're in a position to offer an opportunity to those clubs who are keen on trying to increase activity in club racing."

John offers an example of an initiative that he helped run at his home club, Emsworth Sailing Club. "We had a good training set-up for the Oppie kids there, but when I and a group of us moved on, there was no obvious replacement coming through from the other parents. So we said: ‘OK, how about if we appoint some senior instructors to teach your kids in a safe and enjoyable way?' The parents went for that, and so they pay £60 for five sessions, which is not bad value, probably cheaper than going to your local leisure centre."

It's good to see the RYA looking to build up club activity, because it's often their junior and youth programmes that are criticised for taking life out of the clubs. And by the way, this initiative is aimed as much at coaching seniors as it is at juniors. The RYA are keen to work closely with clubs and classes on new projects, so if it sounds interesting then make sure your organisation is represented at the Dinghy Show discussions and/or drop John a line at racing@rya.org.uk, saying that you're interested in the Club Pro Initiative.

Miami

Well done to Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield for their dominant performance at the Miami Rolex Olympic Classes Regatta recently. They pulled out such a nice points lead during the main competition that come the Medal Race all they had to do was finish the race - even if it was in last place - to secure gold. As it was, they put the hammer down and came 2nd in the Medal Race, so they enhanced their margin of victory even further.

Speaking to Joe soon after he got back from Florida, he was obviously delighted with such a turn of speed, especially because he and Nick are still only getting back into their stride after last year's enforced lay-off from sailing due to Nick breaking his wrist in a mountain biking accident.

"We hadn't got much much sailing under our belt, but we had a good week's training beforehand," said Joe. They finished 5th in the preceding regatta, the 470 North American Championships. "That gave us a few obvious things to work on, but we felt like we were racing fairly well. The week after, we went back to basics, got all our boathandling a bit sharper, did some straightline work downwind. In symmetric spinnaker boats, a lot of the speed is down to timing between helm and crew, how the technique feels. Nick and I do a lot of talking between the two of us to find a style that works for the conditions at that venue."

Wow, changing your technique for different venues! That's pretty technical, but then these guys are the best in the world, so I suppose it shouldn't come as that much of a surprise. I just tend to think that you've either got good technique or bad technique, but Joe suggests that there are a number of variations on good technique, and dialogue between helm and crew is the way to ensure you find the one that works at any given time.

If technique specifically relates,

Started well all week, generally we didn't have any real races. Most of the time we rounded in the top seven or eight,

The longer you sail together, the longer you've raced, it's easier to take breaks. Mentally you're not preoccupied with mistakes you've made at recent regattas. Your confidence is intact, not particularly psyched out by anyone in the fleet. Definitely more rusty, not as practised.

It can work as a one-off - not sailing together. Sailing at the venue is specific.

Don't really know how much it helps our selection.

As with most statistics, depends how you read them. Americans won three golds, we won one. I don't think it was a poor showing, people with different priorities in different classes. Every good boat was there, most classes that was the same. Easy to get too excited about how well the British team has done well, wouldn't say it was disappointing. Individually a few. Still shows

People talk about a light-wind venue, like Olympics.

To win that event and Pre-Olympics by 20 points, generally if we've won the event it's been very close. Just had to finish 10th, wasn't a big pressure race. As long as we finished the race, we just had to finish the race. Everyone has a different agenda, we noticed at the Pre-Olympics, once you went outside the top 5 there was definitely less concentration, and people trying their luck.

It's not a bad format, puts a lot of emphasis on it being a fair race, but so long as the race committee. That is a concern for the Olympics, will they postpone a race, understand.