Different ways of motivation. Back in the days when I was cycling, I had a cheap bike and it was a good kick to beat all those guys with there super titanium everywhere NASA designed bikes.
But I can imagine, that if you have won everything already you need some special motivation.
The new boat subscription sure helped me. After fixing up a Nacra 5.2, Nacra 6.0, etc. etc., I bought an F18 new in 2004 and joined the F18 fleet. wow - did I get my butt kicked...and wow - did I really start to figure out how to sail fast much more quickly than the first 5 years I sailed competitively. Every boat I owned, I hit the beach always thinking how I need to tweak this or that or how I need to replace a sail to get faster but I never realized how much of my poor result was technique - probably 99% or more. Sailing a new boat took away every mental excuse I could muster until I started really looking at how I was sailing the boat.
If I had invested in some coaching, I probably could have shortened that 5 year span of slow sailing.
