Billy Connolly, in his funeral oration for the shipbuilders’ union leader, Jimmy Reid, on 20 August, 2010, described walking through Govan, Glasgow, with him. Connolly recalled Reid's words:

In this chapter, I bring the narrative of British yachting into the present and look at pointers towards its future. While I am confident of the trends I suggest, I can be less precise about timing, and recognise that there will be some regional, and even local, variations.

The 2008 Banking Crisis and financial crash were caused by reckless mortgage lending and other risky financial behaviours by British bankers. The taxpayers had to lend (give?) billions of pounds to the banks to bail them out, resulting in the longest economic slump in modern British history.

The grounds for such an event had been created from the 1980s onwards, as successive governments believed that the economy could only flourish if they gave the multinationals all they demanded in terms of a docile workforce. This required that they provided a cheap workforce, and a fearful one, by removing the financial and legal safety nets for anyone who was not working – mothers who believe that bringing their children up is a full-time job, the poor, the ill, the old.

The impact of political or social issues on yachting is not discussed in the yachting press. There are three large-selling magazines in the United Kingdom: Practical Boat Owner, catering for the smaller boat sailor who wishes to undertake his own maintenance; Yachting Monthly, aimed at the cruising, middle-size, yacht owner; and Yachting World, concerned with yacht racing and super yachts. All are owned by the same company, IPC (International Publishing Corporation, now part of Time Inc. UK), and editorial staff move freely between them. Given this near monopoly situation, there is a lack of alternative views or vision.