Olympic Classes for 2012

In terms of your general thesis that sailing participation is increasing in boats that might be regarded as "slow", I'd agree, although it's also clear that a significant number of the most active sailors prefer "fast" boats and the situation is better characterised as a polarisation than as a simple trend. However I don't agree that this analysis leads to a conclusion that the Olympics should be packed out with boats suitable for the average sailors.

Regarding your suggested model sports, I'd struggle to view walking,  keep fit/yoga or, snooker/pool/billiards as sports, estimable pastimes as they may or may not be. Of your remaining list, with the exception of golf, I'm not at all sure they are growing as participation sports. My village football club recently closed due to lack of members, as an example.

Along with others, I have in the past analysed some Sports England figures for another sport (climbing) and found them to be clearly wrong (exaggerated in that case) by a factor of 2-3. Furthermore the figures show growth while other markers such as equipment sales show a steady state. There's a general consensus in climbing that the official figures are plain wrong.  It's actually quite hard to get accurate figures in non-competitive, non-club-based sports.

Hence while the desire for fact-based analysis is commendable, it has to be recognised that sports participation statistics can be confusing and by no means reliable.

I think that in the demographic that participates in youth sailing you'd find a very significant proportion of  young sailors snowboard or have an interest in snowboarding, regardless of Sports England statistics. Contrariwise I haven't met that many youths who golf and sail (although doubtless some will instantly popup here). Snowboarding has regular mainstream TV coverage in the UK, which sailing no longer enjoys, and presents a good example of how an outdoor sport can be presented to a young audience. It seems to have no problem maintaining an exciting top-end image and a more accessible reality for beginners.

I'm old enough to have been part of the original windsurfing boom and bust cycle . The increasing focus on high-wind sailing meant that even in the UK's windy climate, people were sailing less and less and sitting around waiting for the wind more and more. Most eventually got bored and went away. In my case I started sailing keelboats and later dinghies. Whether that process constituted an "image" problem for windsurfing is a somewhat semantic question.  In any case, it doesn't translate to a problem with skiff-type boats - rather the reverse.

Exactly....

I'm now spending a lot of time around people at the Ski center, a fair proportion kids i the age range 5-16; Lots oask me about sailing as I usually have some old ECPR shirt on; the questions comments are loosly...

1, Is sailing expensive.  - Nope; you can start cheeply

2, Is sailing difficuly - no, not to start with; if you can Ski / Snowboard, you can sail

3, You sail cats, are they difficult to sail as they go faster (there is SOME understanding of our sport) - No; there are some slightly different skills but the answer to 2 still applies.

Some wander off at this point talking about "when it gets warm, maybe I will have a go"....

4, The olympics....  Thoes skiff things that kepts falling over; they look difficult to sail; are they?  Yes, but it is all relative...

5, Those Cats at the olympics looked fun when there was some wind.  Why are they not at the 2012 games.. (again there is SOME appreciation out there, but they have probably heard me scheming on my phone after/ before lessons...).  It's complicated...

6, Some then will ask AGAIN about the 9ers (Skiffs); The crux is that they are genuinly interested in the "falling in" aspect...  At this point we sometimes used the same ski run analogy as above.  green/blue/red/balack and OP...

They liked the idea of spectacular and difficult classses to sail; the reason being they see spactacular is DIFFICULT and you fall off/over....

SOME skiiers watch Ski Sunday to marvel at the skill and gain some pointers to apply to their racing / technique.  Most watch waiting for someone to fall over or marvel at the speed they go on pistes they are sking down at a 1/4 of the speed.  

For those of us that Ski / Ride, what do you talk about more...  That fantastic easy red you shussed all the way down, or that balck run / coulior you aced / or nearly killed your self on/in? 

I spend a lot more time talking to people in lessons (to the kids I teach on Saturday mornings) about the difficult stuff than I do about pootling around on blue runs practicing edge technique.....  They all want to know how to Ski moguls / black runs / get to the top of the slope.  They don't want to go slow; the clever ones understand that you need to get the technique right first. 

My view is that the spectacular classes attract people (backed up by comments I get at the Ski center from kids) but we need to have the imfrastructure in place to keep people once they try sailing.  

IMO we will never attact YOUNG people into the sport with boats going slow, even if the racing is close; the young want whizz, bang,  crash racing TO WATCH; once they are sailing, some will catch the "Racing" bug and then close racing IS attractive.  However, they will STILL want to sail a 49er / Tornado / F18 / F16 / A class or MPS.

I would love to see an olympic regatta with the following boats (or something like them) for each sex:

Laser
Fat persons 2 up boat - dare I say FD?
49er
MPS
A Class
Tornado
Match racing

Problem is that the average size of people across the workd varies; the asian nations my struggle to find an FD crew!!  

There is a world of difference between being called fat or any other term and using the same term in a self depreciating way.

My point is that dinghy and sportsboat sailing has developed a somewhat derogatory attitude to heavyweight sailors. Imagine the protests  if someone had described the foiling Moth as a fast boat for acrobatic runts... rather than as a highly technical foiling singlehanded class for lightweight sailors.

To go back to the comparaison with rugby - modern international scrum halves are about the same weight nowadays as an open sized flanker in the 60s. At the same time the average optimum weight for dinghy classes has declined, and in sportsboat/keelboat classes has been artificially reduced by weight limits.

Gordon

Propose anything you like, you'll never get the FD class back into the Olympics. Worldwide, the FD is a vibrant, thriving class with great camaraderie. In the UK all Olympic status did was destroy the class at club level. What we have - partly thanks to the pressure of Olympic development - is a class that has arguably the best understood and developed rig of any symmetric boat, and is thus an absolute joy to sail in any conditions. Olympics? No thanks...