Jeff,

I know I am much more inclined to travel under 4 hours each way on a weekend, mostly from a time standpoint but fuel costs aren't getting cheaper.

The other unfortunate reality is the existing USSC infrastructure that you listed excludes large swaths of the country. It is 1,000 miles to Miami from Annapolis and 400 miles to Newport (the later close to frozen now). There are sizable active fleets of HP boats in Georgia, SC, NC, MD and NJ that would have a tough time making it to regional coaching on a given weekend. Yes the top talent will find a way to make the drive but the U.S Sailing/yacht club members that are paying for the regional coaches might have a tough time justifying the expense if they too can't reap the benefit. I'm sure a similar thing can be said for other areas of the country. A related solution is to build community sailing centers that can operate outside the yacht club infrastructure and basically exist solely to support coaching sailors from never been on a boat to Olympic level (the later bringing USSC status and associated funding). These may be off the beaten path a little bit but bring new sailing venues and much lower membership fees than a typical yacht club infrastructure.

Another minor concern is the availability of high performance coaches, at least in the Florida area 3 out of 4 that I am aware of live on the Gulf Coast, quite a drive from Miami. I'm not sure other areas of the country even have 1 performance coach.

-Sam