Sailing Anarchy Apologist

My last thread supporting Sailing Anarchy's forums as a wintertime non-sailing diversion got some great comments. A kind of inadvertent spam (I don't think she really was doing it for anything other than the face value), a funny comment by one of my favorite bloggers Eli, a spoof of the first spam, a spoof of that spam, and then a spoof of a post I made on Sailing Anarchy. Fun stuff overall for a bit of a lame post.

And then this from our good friend Anonymous:
"Looks like mentioning SA has gotten you the same kind of useless comments that litter their Forum. Yes, there is some helpful info, but loads of crap, plus enough negativity to do sailing sufficient damage. The sport is not growing, why support a place that pulls it down?"

I keep hearing the refrain, "our sport is not growing" like it's some legitimate concern. Other than the small percentage of one design racers, sailing is an individual sport. You sail with a few friends and enjoy the uncrowded waterways. It can be a bear getting crew but there is always the option of a smaller boat.

I'm as concerned as anybody when I can't get most of my friends to go sailing with me, but with a bit of effort, I've ferreted out those that are interested and I've introduced a bunch of people to "our sport".

Of course, Sailing Anarchy is keeping the sport down, just last week I was down at the dock rigging the boat and the owner of the derelict next to me came down. He was about to step onto his boat when he sort of scrunched up his face, harummphed loudly, and stomped away. "Holy crap, our sport is shrinking again" I exclaimed and ran after him to see what was wrong. He told me the sordid tale about how he asked a question on SA about what color running rigging would go best with his bimini and some guys named Solo and Lesbian Robot and Monty Burns piled onto him calling him a newbie and dirtbag and questioning his sailing heritage. How could he possibly go sailing with that hanging over his head?

Damn that Sailing Anarchy!