Amateur Sailor of the Year

You guys might not count certain industry employees as pros but World Sailing (and the RRS) do. The theory being that you only need to be 1% better than joe average for it to be an advantage, so even if you sit behind a desk and only sail at weekends you pick up key knowledge that will help you get the most out of your boat and gear when racing, get time to spend thinking about and fettling your setup, get cheap or free gear and opportunities to improve your sailing that you would not otherwise...

We've got to a point where, according to this poll, the frontrunning nominee for an 'amatuer' award gained their nomination due to results achieved with two crews; one in that grey area of amateurism (derives 100% of income from a technical sailing role, sails 4 or 5 days a week, etc) and the other a card-carrying pro sailor.

True enough, the pro definition needs to be for those who are paid to sail full time. Those who happen to work in the industry and do a bit of sail testing as part of the job should not be barred from entering. 

The Pro/amateur definitions need work, though, if you are going to do that. Maybe ask Olympic squad members to bow out gracefully. Seems a shame you couldn't do it because you work as a jockey for a sail maker in a National class. After all, in most of those cases the job came because of the skills and enthusiasm.

I think they should award the Endeavour trophy for the best amateur. 

Originally posted by JimC The Endeavour illustrates it nicely. Mr Saxton has won 25 of the last 31 races, and only 3 times been out of the top 3. Don't get me wrong, I think its great he still has the enthusiasm to do amateur dinghy racing in his spare time rather than just grabbing pay cheques on leadmines, but I submit that if the Endeavour really wants to represent the best sailors in the country it needs to try and encourage the top squad member from all the Olympic classes to compete.