Jake
I think its and apples and oranges .

I think the IOC will market the olympics on their own... they want fast and visually exciting boats for their TV advertisors. The advertising on your boat is your national flag at the olympics. The events leading to the olympics tend to be catagory C in cats... Not sure about stars or lasers.

However, the MNA... is trying to raise money for supporting the sailors on Olympic campaigns. The fund raiser has to tap the deep pockets from members of the yacht clubs... The pitch is... we fund ONLY world class sailors... Your money will push the sailor who is just on the verge... into medal contention. Its not, about Fast and Visually exciting. So, raising money, is an appeal to well off individuals to support Olympic caliber sailors. It's a lot easier to make this pitch to individuals with a shared interest... eg one lead mine sailor to another monohull sailor.

One other factor that may have unwittingly hurt our cause over the years is the use of Catagory C events for catamaran racing. Are the major US Star, or Laser, regattas, catagory C events (allow advertising/sponsor logos on the sails)? I don't believe so. The Tornado events all were catagory C to allow the pro's to display their sponsor logos. However, very few regattas in the USA are Catagory C events. Advertising is a big No NO to many yacht club racing members. I have often wondered if we suffer from our saying OK to catagory C type advertising on our sails and running these types of regattas?


Perhaps, the donors say... Hell... that catamaran sailor is out raising money selling advertising...all that crap on his sail... good for him... I will donate to the corinthian sailor trying for the olympics with plain white sails!