I'll stick my neck out a little here. I am involved in the TV industry in a small way and I have a couple of ideas why we don't see much sailing on TV.



1-From a production standpoint sailing, especially WET sailing, is very expensive to cover well. The story, for those not obsessed like us, is not directly in the speed of the boats. It is in the drama of stories of indavidual people and teams. All good sports TV centers not around the objects of those sports (cars, footballs, pucks, sticks, BOATS), but rather around the people. This means a lot of waterproof cameras on as many boats as possible to see the faces and the indavidual struggle to win. I'll personally watch an unedited tape of a boat sailing by...no one else will, and there arenot enough of us to get the rateings even an OLN show needs to attract sponsors.



2-We as a group have to not have our act together. If you aproach a programmer or sponsor with an idea, they have to see a professional situation. Cat sailing above all has struggled with this. We are generally not conformist yacht-club types and it shows. There are many factions within our small group and we do not speak united. Untill that happens sailing on TV will be limited to the well organized and big sponsored (read:America's Cup)



If you want to work on someone work on attracting intersted and involved sponsors to the sport. One good sponsor could make all your dreams come true. If a sponsor sees that we have an audience they will invest in us.



Tom Leobold