My first post should have said Catamaran Sailing.
My thought was to provoke some outside the same old tired box thinking.

I have seen no evidence that suggests that an old heavy slow boat or a new light fast boat has anything to do with increased participation. It's never going to be about the boat. It's a people thing.IMO
The programs that Peter Nelson, Caleb and others have been doing are great. As I said earlier, the programs are in place. This was supposed to be about how to get young people to seek out those programs.

The marketing angle was what I wanted to kick around.
If any of you have ever read Jeffory Gitomer's Little Red Book of Selling he talks about how sales people complain about not being able to get phone calls returned, can't setup appointments, close a sale or get potentional new customers to call them.
His very blunt take on this is that "You Suck" and need to do things differant.

There are many sales and marketing stories that go back many years about one manufacturer vs. another and the end result is that the best sales department or marketing idea is what caused the success and not the product.
This goes back to Diamond Jim and the railroads, the Colt 45 wild west shows all the way up to Patron tequila(marketed brilliantly by a hair product guy).

So some of the earlier comments about media coverage,celebrity sailing and the WWF's plans may be useful in making young people think that what we do is cool.
Boat or people bashing of any kind will take us no where.

There isn't a shortage of good designs out there.
There seems to be a lack of good advertising.