If we go back to the mid-eighties, there was a regatta in Florida about every two weeks for maybe nine or ten months of the year. To my recollection 50 boats was a good turn out, fewer was a disappointment. The largest regatta I recall was on Lido Key (Sarasota) circa 1978 and about 300 boats. That's a hell of a lot of "bed tax" dollars, restaurant meals, and gas tax revenue.

There was once, in Central Florida, something called "Sail Florida"? At any rate it got "too big" and was canceled. I never knew the full story but a lot of people would like to have that kind of intrastate tourism back.

I'm approaching this from the stand point of revenue generation. The video of the 2009 F18 Worlds in Belgium is a great eye-opener, particularly the aerial shot of the "parking lot". The people I'm talking to don't have much interest in sailing per se, but they can count heads and calculate dollars.