50% of sailors sail offshore keel boats

Round the word races are spectator sports

Participation cost will be low

Completely bonkers, 

World Sailing says the D-zero distracts from athleticism because of adjustable mast rake and trailer options but adding lead is athletic.

Completely bonkers, how on earth is this an Olympic event. 

https://www.sailing.org/news/88920.php#.XezCHS-nyhB" rel="nofollow - https://www.sailing.org/news/88920.php#.XezCHS-nyhB

Obviously it would be far too simple to use International Flying Fifteens over good long inshore courses. Completely open teams so long as the crew is mixed in any configuration.

Fully agree a 4 to 6 hour race in ‘conventional’ day boat would do everything this does at a fraction the cost and be much more accessible to developing countries. It is all scrambled up, they want more inclusive sailing and then agree this, yes the actual Olympic boats are provided but a serious campaign will be the most expensive campaign in teal terms for a very long time

+1

I would love to know when (in the UK) these boats with lids actually sail. All I ever see are increasing large marinas with ever more inactive boats. I am sure they may do the odd big race or occasion week but actual participation I am suspicious about. 

Heavily sponsored big boats (mono and multi) are very skewed representation of the sport. If was in the market for a suit I’d go to Next and buy a new sail rather than a Hugo Boss. 

More interesting than a two day race, at least with 6 hours it can be scheduled in a days racing. This is like trying to turn climbing Mount Everest into an Olympic sport by racing up Ben Nevis. 

Yeah that sounds about right, no mater what they with graphics it isn’t going to be gripping close boat on boat. With the advent of TV sailing haven’t races got shorter? 

People do keep up to date with long cricket matches by checking in every now and then, I expect the boats will have trackers you could look at every hour, Cricket does have real people watching in a stadium mind. 

Big boats with lids sail all over the place, Holyhead Yacht Club is not a large Solent based club but they get half a dozen or more 30'+ boats out on a weekend or summer Wednesday night. I'd guess the same happens in the North West/North Wales, Caernarfon, Abersoch, Barmouth, Liverpool, Fleetwood and many other places around the country. Some dinghy clubs can't get that many out in a single fleet.

I stand corrected but something I have never seen, I must be wrong place at wrong time. Probably blinkered glasses of die in the wool dinghy sailor. 

Is it an Olympic event though? 

To my mind absolutely not, for reasons of expense and accessibility. 

Olympic endeavour may well be about attaining elite standards but the events should come from a place available to the wider populace.

https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/224829/Pretty-handy" rel="nofollow - https://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/224829/Pretty-handy

Olympic medals for the middle aged middle class 

 

Not sure how reliable 

My point and opinion is that I like to think of Olympic sports as being accessible to most as grass roots level.

   

True, just like olympic sailors being sponsored by North or Harken or whoever (I suspect she may have paid for her custom gun, though probably not the $30k you or I would have to stump up for one, a bit like Ben's Finn). The issue is always sponsorship, when the Olympics was all amateur sponsorship was not allowed (or at least strictly controlled) and the only 'professional' sportsmen were 'employed' in the armed forces of certain Nations. I didn't like the Olympics allowing professionals to compete but, with hindsight, it may well have levelled the playing field.

including those of  NATO nations as well as the   WarPac