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car between ten crewmembers?)
    Nevertheless, it would be foolish to deny that campaigning a yacht in the Grand Prix fleets is now beyond the financial reach of all but the seriously rich. It’s no longer a cheap sport for owners, even of mid-range boats. So, what are the real dollars involved, and where is this flood of new money into yachting likely to lead us?
    Design and construction of a state-of-the-art hull will cost no less than $450,000. Fitting out with winches, steering gear, deck hardware, ropes and electronic instruments takes care of another $150,000 at least. Decent-sized engines start at around $10,000. A competitive carbon rig – mast, shrouds, boom and two spinnaker poles (or bowsprit/prodder) – adds at least $90,000. A life raft, radios and the full complement of safety gear will total a minimum of $20,000. Lastly, a full suit of sails – main, five jibs, four spinnakers and two storm sails – should consume your last $120,000.
    Now add the cost of keeping the yacht at a convenient marina, regular antifouling, race entry fees, breakages, maintenance, fuel and return delivery charges. Within twelve months your first one million dollars has swiftly disappeared down that lovely hole in the water you proudly call your boat. And that’s only for a mid-range racer. Bob Oatley reportedly spent more than eight million dollars creating Wild Oats XI for its 2005 Sydney–Hobart win, and then didn’t even have the thrill of being aboard for the victory. By the time he’d made enough money to afford his 100-foot rocket ship, he was too old to sail on it during a long race. For most of us that would be unthinkable, but it’s also a distressing pointer to how the big money is now beginning to distort our sport from the top down.
    At the front of the fleet – the intense maxi-yacht competition that dockside wags call ‘the arms race’ – fully professional crews have become almost de rigueur. It makes perfect sense to the owners. If they’ve already been prepared to fork out a few lazy million to get a competitive new boat to the starting line, what’s another $50,000 or so to secure the services of the best young racing sailors, a navigator and two helmsmen for a fortnight or so to maximise their chances of a win? Those who aren’t being paid directly to sail on these monsters are often employees of the boat-builder, rigger and sailmakers who helped create the yacht. Their specialist contributions are provided to owners as a sophisticated form of after-sales service (and have presumably been factored into the original purchase price).
    What hope do gifted amateurs have of keeping pace with these rock stars of sailing? Buckley’s and none, I’m afraid. Syd Fischer of Ragamuffin fame, himself a notoriously hard-nosed offshore competitor for more than 30 years, makes the excellent point that professionalism is contrary to the spirit of the sport because it doesn’t give these ‘ordinary’ crews a chance. Worse, it must inevitably deny some beginners the opportunity to secure a regular place within the ocean-racing fraternity. It seems sadly counterproductive that one of the longer-term outcomes of this cash-charged hunger for ugly silver trophies might be a diminution of the talent pool that has served Australian yachting so well, and for so long.
    In my view, any sensible response to these problems of professionalism must first resist the regulator’s reflex resort to some coercive winding back of the clock. There is no practical way to keep big money out of the sport, and no sense in trying. Rather, the object of any new regime should be to moderate – to construct a fair competitive environment in which like races against like, outstanding sailing is properly rewarded, and the crude laying on of dollars does not axiomatically buy success. A start has been made in the currently fashionable Farr 40 One Design class, where the