Mary,
that piece of logic is worthy of Holbergs comedy "Erasmus Montanus". A book worth reading.
What makes a great sailor is time on the water. An amateur can become a great sailor and in time companies might employ him to sail for them, so far I am with you. When you can spend 5 days a week on the water with coaches, you become so much better that an amateur sailing 1-3 times a week never will catch up. This is the difference and the reason I think pros and amateurs should not compete. There is a reason an champion amateur boxer start with easy matches when he goes pro. It is the same with a lot of sports so perhaps they have a point?
Transferring from amateur ranks to pro should not be a big issue, so I dont quite understand the depth of feelings running here. It is just two different leagues to me.
Here in Norway our olympic teams recieve some funding, but far from enough to do a campaign on. They have to find sponsors to be able to compete at the highest level and still eat. As far as I can think of just now, we only have one professional sailor here, Knut Frostad.
I think it is much the same with other countries, but the amount of funding the athletes recieve varies. The big teams and the big names makes decent money from their sailing.
Tony,
are you saying you have weekend warriors routinely placing in front of teams like Mitch and Pim in the Netherlands?? Then you should send those sailors out on the olympic circuit instead of the current teams <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />
Remember my definition of "pro"?
When are you a professional: When you are racing sailboats full time, and are paid to do it.
I think the Hobie Tiger Worlds 2008 you referred to actually supports my point. If you look at the top ten, you see loads of pros there. The big difference is that they were not sailing in their usual teams. E.g. Bundy and Caroljin, Tiffany and Mitch (who is Tiffany??). If you had Bundy and Ashby, Mitch and Pim, Caroljin and Sebbe sailing with their usual level of teamwork in place I think the results would have been different (Dont take this as derogatory towards Mark L. and crew, they did stellar).
