Nationwide Sailing Part II

The Boats

This is one of sailing's biggest pitfalls. Simply put, if you compare every other successful sport in the US to sailing there is one major difference. Accessibility. You can play every other game at home with your friends. Football, baseball, soccer, hockey, basketball. Even the tougher ones like golf, and even, ultimate frisbee are all easier to sell than sailing because you can do them in your backyard. Now, we all know that you can practically just as easily become a crew on someone's boat at your local club but you get the idea.

Imagine if I was trying to get you to watch my new sport. Hovercraft racing. You simply don't relate. You've never been on a hovercraft much less driven one. But when you watch even NASCAR, you've driven a car before and you can imagine how difficult it would be.

This is where sailing lags. Not everyone in the US has sailed before. The first time I told my grandfather (longtime football coach and sports fan) about my sailing interest he admitted he had never been on a sailboat and thusly had zero interest in the matter.

This is why ideally I would like for someone to develop high performance, professional quality, fast, extreme racing machines that are accessible to every middle class americans pocketbook. Of course this will never happen but I see some compromises.


First of all, I think that skiffs are the way to go. I like the idea of keeping the amount of crew down. Plus, capsizes are exciting. Big 100 foot sailboats with 30 crew might be equally exciting, but it's just too much money and adds to the inaccessibility of the sport. Skiffs are cheap (comparatively) and are extremely exciting. They are easy to move around and are faster than any mono-hull. I don't hate the idea of cats but I just think that skiffs are easier to understand.

Now this is against what I've been saying. That the boats push the sport away from the common American. How many 18 foot skiffs do you see at your local club? Probably zero. They are still making their way into the US and are still expensive. I believe that you are going to have to set the market on fire. Similar to how the current SB3 campaign is flooding the market. As far as I know there is not a US 18 foot skiff builder. But if you created an interest for them (as a subsidiary like the ASL might), then a builder would be able to open up shop in the US.

Then, if you follow what I've been teaching, skiffs would be the hottest boat ever to hit the US market and the sales would skyrocket. Propelled by the nationwide circuit and local yacht club support, everyone would want a skiff. Starting lines would be crowded as yacht clubs try to raise money and teams to send to competitions. Sounds great doesn't it? But the truth is, it's been done before. Well, I should say, tried before. Just about every single one-design sailboat tries to fit this role. Being the greatest boat ever in it's market and hopefully the only boat on the water. It's simply a great idea.

But it never works. Not because the boats aren't great, but because the market is too confusing. There's the laser, then the 420, then the gennaker skiffs, then the J/22s, then the Melges, then... . I could go on and on. The point is, there is no single sailing market. No one boat can ever dominate the entire market. Now I would say in the US, if you're looking for a one person high performance boat, the laser is it. It's probably the most popular racing boat in the country (excluding perhaps the sunfish). So why aren't there laser regattas every week and storybook dramas unfolding from our tvs on summer sundays? Good question. To be fair, there are a lot of laser regatta. Local, statewide, and even nationwide. But they certainly don't gather much attention. Most active sailors don't even follow them. But why? I'll tell you why...in a later series. :)

But back to the boats, you can't blame the laser for it's lack of media and public attention. It has succeeded beyond belief. So is there room for skiffs or some new designed boat in the US market? Yes. In fact, the market is begging for a boat to win this niche. The melges 24 have tried, the SB3 are sprinting and it seems as though Vanguard (or Laser Performance) comes out with a new gennaker boat every 6 months. There are hundreds of options.

A skiff rollout combined with heavy marketing and a nationwide professional circuit could be just what is needed to win. You could attract current sailors, ex college sailors, joe-schmo and the "extreme" younger generation everyone is always talking about. If the boat is available either for purchase or for experimentation through yacht clubs, I believe the whole thing is simply propelled.

You didn't think I was going to get this complicated did you? You thought I was just going to praise the skiffs for being so...non-boring. Well you're right, they are. But it is going to take so much more than that to bring the sport to the mainstream. The boats (and the sport) have to become accessible to the normal guy. You can't just go out in the backyard and sail around for 10 minutes with your buddies like you can with football, baseball, and 90% of the other popular sports.

If sailing is going to make a stand, the boats are going to have to be the feet.