One of the many problems with promoting sailboat racing is that in most cases the races are not close enough to shore for spectators to see what is going on (if they can even see the boats at all). And if you put the course in close to shore, the racers complain about the flukey wind or the boat chop or whatever.

They managed to have close-in, spectator-friendly racing for the America's Cup boats that raced recently out in San Francisco, and also at the Little America's Cup at Newport. Those were rare situations, but we need more of them.