49er medal race

Chris,

That fact my 7 year old son went off to play with his lego as Ben sailed
around the course.

he was glued to the screen whith the 49ers and all the sailing he's seen
he has been asking "where are the 49ers and the Tornado's"

Every time A tornado appeared on the first Star race he instantly started
watching it, same when the 49ers were on other courses.

However he is the son of a cat sailor and Skiff liker.  But it shows what
we need to keep the kids happy.

My mates who drive and race cars have a similar opinion.  They will
watch the Skiff DVD's when at my house, they will comment on it looks
fun and challenging.  Mate phoned me up last week to talk about a race
car project and commented that all the sailing had been boring except
the small snippits of the T he had seen. 

My parents are sailors, they watched Ben for a while and then went in
the garden when it was certain he's won.  Tehy came back and whatched
the whole 49er race.

Only anicdotal evidence, but these are the sorts of people we need to
attract if we want it to be seen as something that should be in the ollies
and an interesting sport to watch.

If we want people to take part, we need to make people interested in
the sport first.  Many of my mates have seen sailing as fat gits in boats
drinking G+T's; the wind in china has not helped, they all ask "what's the
challenge in sailing in 4 kts of wind".  We KNOW it's difficult, but it does
not LOOK difficult.  Sailing fast boats looks difficult because people think
sailing fast is harder than sailing slow.

As people has said in advertsing - the facts do not matter, it's
perception.....

As for getting more people to sail, we generally have a declining sport,
we need to entice people to sail, how do we do that.  Opinions differ, by I
believe it needs to look good, and IMO, slow boats don't LOOK good,
however good the racing is. 

Would people watch F1 if they went around at 20 miles an hour and
never crashed?  Nope, they would watch Touring cars that do crash. 
Would they watch Bike racing if they were doing 20mph and not leaning
over in the corners nope.

If I can summarise, My view is we need sailing to be seen as a "good
sport to watch" that will then entice people to start, or even try sailing. 

I THINK your view is that this will not work and we just need to
somehow get more people sailing.

My son is still talking about the 49er race this moring, and the first
thing he said when we got to my parents was "did you watch the 49ers?",
he said the same thing at the party I just took him to.

My next problem is how do I pursuade him to sail a Catamaran instead
of a 29er.........