America's Cup 2017: Sir David Ainslie and Great Britain endure mixed bag on first day

(sic)....Daily Express...cancel your subscription now!

BTW - whilst I lurk on Sailing Anarchy (since 2009) and rarely post there as it is such a toxic and brutal environment, it is a source of information - if you can wade through all the crap and BS and bile. But, through all that, there isnt a definitive view as to why the BAR boat isnt quite as quick as some of the others (tho getting quicker day by day). Is it down to foils, control systems or summat else?

(sorry if this should really live in the AC forum thread)

So what went wrong? And why? 

Come on Y&Y. Do some journalism. 

I think all I've seen is highlights of the crashes - no racing at all - and I'm only aware of the results due to fairly committed web searching.  I'm particularly upset with the BTsport channel on virgin TV which is supposed to show live streamed racing, but doesn't show anything when I know the racing is on, and the channel listing doesn't work so you can't set it to record.

I just hope next time it's covered better.  I remember seeing bits of the last AC coverage and thinking it seemed like finally they had cracked the graphic overlays to make sailing watchable and vaguely interesting to those who don't understand the sport.

rant over. 

Highlights shows the following days on BT Sport Showcase (Freeview Channel 115) and BBC2 I believe.

Too late now, but a lot of people did need to retune their signals to get that channel to work properly, so it could have been that.

So...multihull sailing has become a smaller part of a shrinking sport since multis arrived in the AC. It rather makes a mockery of the many who have spent decades claiming that multis would take over once they were allowed in the major events. It also makes it hard to back up any claim that having amazingly fast boats in the AC would attract people to the sport.

I was cynical of the AC format, but have enjoyed the BT Sport coverage, well at least until Clare Balding turned up.  Twenty minute snappy races with fast foiling multihulls, one step away from failure makes great TV.

I just walked past my local pub, which had the AC race times chalked up on the board outside ... usually reserved for Football or Rugby Internationals!

I am sure that this is the basis for a higher profile for sailing going forward ... not as we know it, but nearly all of the guys involved learnt their trade doing what we do ... plus a few cyclors.

Multihulls.... I'm always interested, but never get enough desire to actually part with cash:
 

While I appreciate that national title numbers are not everything, surely something is better than nothing when it comes to tracking the sport. And surely if the AC was turning people onto sailing and onto cats then there would be some evidence of growth in cat sailing at national level?  The cats have been the official class for the AC for about six years now - in sailing terms that is more than enough time for growth to happen. Look at what happened when the "production skiffs" came in (and went) - there was significant growth pretty quickly. As you mentioned, there's growth in more accessible pastimes so why is sailing trying to get its growth by promoting the least accessible part of the whole sport?

It's saddening to read about anti-cat feelings but I've spent enough time as a multi sailor to see the rubbish they throw at monos too. But does the stigma have much to do with what appears to be a worldwide lack of significant growth? For a start, in some places like where I live, years ago the cat opens used to be bigger than any dinghy open - and yet they all faded away. We also have situations where major establishment clubs have run cat, offshore multi and kite events - and yet numbers remain small. Mixed fleet events are small beer down here and almost non-existent for dinghies and yet many more people sail dinghies, so while the factors some of you mention are no doubt significant they can't be the reason why multis are a small minority just about everywhere.

Arguably now the "stigma" of a sort is on fixed-keel monos which are now out of the AC, the VOR and the Olympics, yet in many countries they remain the most popular type. 

As you note, TT, fast multis are just expensive things as well as normally logistically challenging. I love our F18 but man it's a PITA to get to races!   Interesting to hear your views on layout, Craiggo, although I tend to think our F18 and old Taipan were well laid out.

Chris 249. I'd be chary about taking the numbers too much at face value but what they do indicate quite clearly is the direction that the trends are taking. From a participation perspective, I was RO for the Sprint 15 (the baby Dart) Nationals a while back and they had a good turn out, a 60+ boat fleet. I doubt though that any of their success can be linked to the use of cats (or Tris) in the AC. Indeed, the problem for the likes of you and I is to clearly establish any direct causal links that will explain the success or failure in any one bit of the sport. As I travel around the UK, I see lots of contributory factors but no one thing that you can simply say "the reason is 'this'".

There is some concern expressed in certain quarters (thought this might well be the informed, but minority view) that some of the travails are the result of top down policy. From my own personal observation, some of the changes we've been subjected too haven't helped the grassroots of the sport. What cannot be denied is that here in the UK, those who administer the sport seem to be in love with the high profile, big money 'stadium events' and see this as being the honey pot that will attract legions of new sailors to the sport. Will greater television/media coverage of events such as the AC and the Olympics attract a new generation of sailors who as yet have no connection at all with the sport? The Jury hasn't even sat yet to consider this.

What though is inescapable is that small boat sailing (both racing and non-competitive on water activities) at the grassroots level is sailing straight towards a demographic cliff edge. If you take those numbers you were working with and them apply a second level of analysis, one that takes age into consideration, the resulting stats can look really scary. Yes, there is a buoyant youth scene at many UK clubs but many of these are 'legacy children' - the offspring of sailors. However, if you look at the attrition rate post participation in the Squad system, one wonders how any sport can be so profligate in the way it 'wastes' the incoming supply of interest.

Taking the sport back towards the elite, which is one of the trends that can be identified might work but without protecting the mainstream 'core' of today's middle aged sailors is a really high risk strategy. Maybe over the next generation there will be a cull of clubs and classes - I certainly see that as more probable than possible.....but that I accept is a UK centric view. Already I see a different dynamic when I go abroad, with a very real possibility that the focus of the sport, as seen by the centres of activity (and excellence) could well shift to the so called 'emerging nations'

D

The club I am looking to join, well technically already have joined, doesn't have a membership fee.  

It runs the dinghy side purely on Facebook - simply sign up.    It's run as part of a marina leisure complex so the fees are built into the boat storage charges- which are modest at the dinghy end of the spectrum.  

 The rescue cover is part of the dockhand role when racing is scheduled and they also run plenty of family cruising days - where 'races' demand a child is on the foredeck of each Laser participating!

Not a model for everywhere admittedly, no model ever is, but it seems to be growing and full of enthusiastic people and refreshingly different from the UK options.  

Yesterday I found a speech given by one of the OTUSA brains trust when they announced that the Cup would be going to cats. It was interesting because some of the contents seem to be very revealing, and sadly they may reveal that he was just working off preconceptions and incorrect beliefs.

It's hard to compare the UK interest in the current cup with recent ACs because it's your first entry in eons. Down here it seems to be getting little press. What is really remarkable is looking at the US NBC Sports Network ratings. In the first week of televised racing the AC did well on a couple of days, but a lot of the time it rated lower than swimming and a dog agility competition. Considering the cash that has gone into it, that's a pretty damning result. 

Given Coutts' desire to make the AC "like F1" it's also .interesting to see how badly even the Monaco round of F1 rates in the USA - it's about 1/7th as popular as pickup truck racing. When Pixel the miniature sheepdog rates higher than Sir Ben and Spithill, the AC doesn't seem to be working that well at attracting the masses.

Good points all Chris, what interests me is the very different dynamic that operates here in the UK (compared to say...Germany or Denmark). Looking at the UK AC entry, it was built around the individual, hugely talented and successful he may be. Even that has a taste of 'our way' of doing things - go back to the football and the World Cup in 2006 and our talisman then was Wayne Rooney. He breaks a bone in his foot and the whole campaign stutters and ultimately fails. Ditto many other sports - look at how Jonnie Wilkinson was a similar talisman in the Rugby. But back to the mainstream of sailing and the potential for 'pull through' from the high profile stadium events (which is the  golden dream for those who run the sport here.....expect another glitzy away day soon to discuss just this topic, except for the fact that only a selected, friendly audience will get an invite). In the past the rapid and hard driven evolution of dinghy racing in the UK has  given us 'world leader' credentials but these  are now from yesteryear - what is more important is one what happens next. That constant evolution was fine back in the days when classes were counting new boats each year in the 100s, but like a Ponzi scheme, the bubble will burst and here at home it has. Some of the superb boats now made in FRP by builders such as Dave Winder can still be front of the fleet competitive at 10 years old, yet behind them there is a continuing proliferation - and therefore fragmentation of what used to be a stable club scene. Take this, then apply that rather jingoistic 'Brits are best' approach (an example: the selection Trials for the Women's skiff at Santander.....and the howls of disbelief when the 49erfx was chosen, though most of the comment from outside the UK had taken this almost for granted) and then add on top the demographic time bomb, an organisation that is focused on success at the Olympics and Youth Worlds and you have a tricky scene with an uncertain future. I'll now get flamed for saying these many heretical comments 'out loud' BUT.....it will be one thing losing to Denmark, another when it is an emergent third world country that pushes us back another place.

D

Originally posted by Chris 249 AC doesn't seem to be working that well at attracting the masses.

The AC has only ever been a pissing contest between rich blokes ... or blokes that can get their hands on other rich blokes money ....

It has nothing to do with attracting people to the sport.

They don't run F1 to attract people to motor racing ... it is an entertainments business to make money.

Totally agree with everything you said Dougal, apart from Jonny. The World Cup winning team in 2003 was genuinely, man for man, arguably the best in every position. They had made winning a habit in a way that English football could only dream of in the build up to that event. I believe that Jonny was important, but not crucial to their success, and as with Dan Carter and the All Blacks in 2011, they might have been triumphant even if he had been injured.

...anyway...diversion over, back to sailing!

You could just as easily make a case for it being an elitist turn off.

Technical wonders they may be to marvel at but very much like or even more so than an F1 car their window of application is pretty narrow. What wind speed to they bin it at? 

A what? 50 year old? class like a Fireball or 505 racing in a top end F5 strikes me as both  accessible and inspirational.

If a bunch of super rich blokes want to make talented ex-dinghy sailors wealthy, fine... whatever.  I'll even enjoy some of the racing to a level... better than football innit.  But I'm not deluding myself it's the pinnacle of the sport I've enjoyed participating in.  Nor would I expect that anyone who did watch it and think they wanted to have a go, would be anything but sorely disappointed when they do eventually step foot in the front end of a Vago at the local gravel pit.   

This is probably a dinghy-centric view though..... given BAR really is local initiative for the Portsmouth regeneration area, I guess it might stimulate a few non-sailors to get on the crew rostas for solent lead-mining.... yellow welly sales might benefit.

Ken Read has provided informed commentary which frankly I have enjoyed, I suppose it could be worse ... it could be Nick Mullins!

Team New Zealand are part-Government funded and were so in the previous cup. BAR are not unusual in this respect.

If you wanted technology to be the best it could be, then simply drop the rules requiring boats to be powered by sails. That way the boats will go about 200 knots or more. But if you want technology to be "the best it can be" without restrictions then it won't be a sport.

10:1 , 100:1 , 1000:1?

Say footbhall or rugby, how many are happy to pay for a season pass (stadium or tv) and actually play a game themselves each weekend and not just a kick about with mates?  i get the impression the ratio will be quite dramatic compared to sailing, and these sports seem to be doing ok.  perhaps if sailing isnt attracting new participants its not such a bad thing if it still continues to attract new spectators.... the children of whom may one day partake.

i dont have any hard data so just my opinion and happy to be proven wrong, does anyone know?