Americas cup

Like I said you need to compare fleet sizes on entry level classes to see whether they are going up or down, rather than relying on some study of a statistical or university boffin to tell you how your sport is doing.

Also get onto the beach and see the look on the kids faces and see if they have had a lift, or what happens when one of the America's Cup crews come to the club.

You have to have the programs working at a very granular level to pull the kids into the sport - which means giving very kid in your club's catchment area between say the age of 10-12 yrs a practical, on the water sailing experience.

If you look at the survey you quoted you will see it for adult sport (people above 18years old) and of course the trend is down (by 3%) which is not actually a lot. Particularly amongst a group which is increasingly time starved.

If you are trying to grow a sport using 18 years old plus adults, you have long missed the bus. You needed to be into them 10 years earlier and before they left primary school, and with low-entry cost opportunities. Parents will spend if they can see their kid is interested in the sports and wants to do it. If they think it is just the next fad (which is the case for a lot of kids sports as there is a lot on offer), then they will avoid the capital outlay on a sport they don't understand.

About 50% or more of the sailing intake are now from non-sailing families which is a dramatic change from 40-50 years ago where you often did your father's sport.

Plus if you get kids while they are young and give them the sailing basics for a year or two, often they will come back in their 20's as they know the basics and can increase their skill beyond that of someone who has never sailed and lacks the confidence to try.

RG

When the event is in another location, they mostly get fed the dark side of the America's Cup until the live coverage starts, then it is cool again. The national fervor also kicks in and sailing becomes like any other major sport with international competition.

AC doesn't lead the sport, but it is one of its shop windows - like the Olympics (but unfortunately sailing gets swamped with the coverage of other sports), Like the Volvo Ocean Race which again has big impact in a stopover and for about a week before and a month afterwards. Then you might get some lift off world championships and the like.

Once again, there seems to be an assumption that major events lift participation rates.  This has been studied by many independent academics (especially in relation to the Olympics) and found to normally be untrue. I can get citations later.

RG: If you have the programs in place to capture the new sailors it has to be easier with the sport  having a raised profile - especially if you are a "top four" sport. Plus you get a lift from Olympic medals. 

You have to look at the basis of the stuff academics come up with - and whether they actually know anything about the sport, so they can test their theories and findings with a reality check.

Plus there is a lot of immigration into the developed sailing countries from people without a sailing culture - so they gravitate towards the sports they enjoyed at "home" or their parents palyed - and stay out of sailing - which they also perceive as being expensive.

The "new" AC has huge potential and the general media does "get" the sport and concept because it looks fast, awesome and dangerous. But the AC is appallingly marketed and you would really have to try to think of how to do a worse job than is being done at present. In fact I couldn't think of one thing they could do worse, except maybe have the racing at night.

I don't really want to talk about Auckland and New Zealand, but it does demonstrate a couple of things.

In Auckland you have a lot of clubs in an area that is good for sailing, but that creates the issues of them working alone, rather than together. And each has a good historical reasons for being established and being where they are - which is that in the 1950's and earlier people didn't really have the ability to drive boats to the club with trailers, and the English model was the norm - where you had a club and a boatpark and people kept their boats at the club and walked or cycled to the club, stayed there for most of the day and went sailing. That model will come back in Auckland because people now just do not have the space at home to store boats.

Outside Auckland you have a different model - where there is one club per town (Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin being halfway houses), everyone sails at the one club and there are really none of the Auckland issues. Oddly enough most of the top sailors don't come from Auckland but from outside - Tauranga has probably produced more top sailors of late than any other centre. More than half the crew from NZL-32 came from outside Auckland, originally.

We get the same issue with clubs not working together in Australia, but the sailing participation rate here may be higher these days.

RG: You don't have a national AC team in Australia, and haven't had a Volvo OR team either. You do have the Olympic results but like everywhere else the sailing result gets lost in the success of other sports. General media regard sailing medals as soft medals, and don't give the Olympic side of the sport much coverage except on quiet news days. So your sailing profile is always going to struggle against Cricket, AFL, NRL, Rugby etc. Not having a Volvo team in NZ this time was a big mistake and the profile of the sport suffered as a result.

I don't think the numbers are really changing that much, everyone has their view of the glory days, some fleets diminish others grow. Any big ticket sports have the same issues as sailing - rowing for instance.