But we've had more "cool boats" over the last few years than ever before, and very, very few people are buying them. The Moths have led the way, and they got only 14 boats to the last US titles - well down on recent years once again. In the biggest Australian states the Moth state titles got just 14 boats (fewer than before foils) and there's only two active boats in the second-biggest state. The class reports that in the two biggest countries numbers are static or falling and in other nations there's only 40 or so boats or more.

The foiling cats are attracting very few buyers considering the size of the sport. Kitefoilers seem to be quicker than foiling cats or Moths, but the fleets appear to be small, especially among the kids.

Meanwhile medium or slow hiking singlehanded monos are doing well, slow kids boats are doing really well, and the ocean races like the Fastnet that concentrate on normal monos like Beneteaus and J Boats are doing well.

In the wider market we are seeing surveys, studies and press reports that say that the young adults these days don't normally want high-tech high-speed, they want simplicity and economy, which is why they are almost all ignoring foilers but hundreds of thousands of them are buying slow SUPs.

If press and cool boats was going to pique interest, it would have done so by now. It hasn't. Let's learn from that and move on.