There are some great points made in these posts. I see it as a combination of all these factors with an emphasis on the cultural differences between the US and Europe where sailing is prospering.
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<br>1) The American attitude is I want to buy it on Friday and use it on Saturday. You cant enter sailing this way and succeed, there is a pretty big learning curve to be good at it.
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<br>2) Sailing promotion is done by word of mouth buy the sailing community. No advertizing or media coverage is done to entice the uneducated public on the existence of sailing in general. Late night coverage of the Swedish match racing circuit and mega bucks portrayal of the Americas cup does not help.
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<br>3) Support of entry programs. The French for example have an organized level of advancement to bring the new sailors up from entry level to the high performance cats. In the US this does not exist. This forum is usually a good indicator of how the advancement system in the US works. The entry level and lower performance cats are poo pooed and generaly put down in a high percentage of instances. One boat will never be good for every person. An enty level boat needs to be an enrty level boat. If the person sailing it likes the sport and grows beyond the boat they will move up. Especially if there is growth in the sport where they can sell the lower level boat to another new person without taking too big a bath on the sale.
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<br>My 2 cents.
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<br>Matt<br><br>