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Building a bigger pie
Posted 1 year, 2 months ago
Building a bigger pie
Sailing is a sport of politics. As much as I wish it wasn't there are enemy lines being drawn all over the place. Last week end Luka and I got accused of empire building at the local sailing club when all we were trying to do is ensure that we have enough room to store all the new Moths that are being built. Another shot fired at us was that we were accused of bringing boats from everywhere to the club, so apparently building up fleet numbers is a bad thing. My point here is not to continue these discussions on line, but to use them to illustrate that no matter what your point of view is, there will be someone out there with an opposing view, or thinks that you have a hidden agenda. One of the more recent debate creators in the Moth class is the Bladerider. I personally had my concerns about the Bladerider being sold as a moth and then leaving to form it's own class, leaving a smoldering mess. Although it has since been been pruned from the moth forum (bloody spammers), I raised these concerns in public, and received answers to all my questions. At that point, with my concerns addressed, I welcomed the Bladerider to the class with open arms. At the recent worlds with two "teams" lined up against each other: Team Bladerider and Team Prowler. Then after the worlds, Scott decided to change teams. In the world of Motorsport drivers change teams, and manufactures all the time and no one really cares. Frankly, neither should we. Schumacher woe world titles before he swapped to Ferrari, just as Rohan won world titles before he swapped to Bladerider. It simply doesn't matter. We as mothies need to make sure that we don't start down a slippery slope of manufacturer aligned factions. Instead of fighting over who gets the biggest slice of pie, we should focus on making the pie as big as possible for everyone. In Rohan, the class now has a full time, promotional sales person who is flying around the world spreading the word about foiling moths. Sure he works for Bladerider, but he is selling Bladerider moths. More moths being sold is good for everyone. It's good for Bladerider, it's good for Fastacraft, it's good for the IMCA, it's good for the local club fleets.Rohan out selling Bladeriders is probably even responsible for a good second hand market.Now I am not saying that Rohan is 100% responsible for the success of the foiling moth as there are a large number of people involved, but having the current world champion in a sales and marketing type role can't be a bad thing for the class. So next time you are entering a debate online or in person try and build a bigger pie, not just try and get the biggest piece of a much smaller pie for yourself.
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