Can,

You'll find that sponsorship through gear and discounted prices is easy to find. In my first two years, all our sponsorship was in gear, discounted gear and equipment, and/or labor on the boat. It doesn't sound like much at first but it really is a lot to a team that is just getting started. We also held fund raisers at our sailing clubs - setup the boat on the lawn, cooked a spagetti dinner, and bought some booze...we raised nearly $1500 that way in one year.

Finding a cash sponsor is tricky and the event management can go a long way to help the teams find it by making sure the event marketing is active throughout the year. In the current state of things for this race, most everyone that I know that has a cash sponsor either works for that sponsor or has family that does.