Sailing in Decline

[sailpb]

What is up with sailing? The following chart https://sites.google.com/site/palmbeachsailing/represents the decline in frequency of the term 'sailing' entered into Google searches since 2004 - usually a good marker of interest and awareness of a particular topic. What is up and how can interest be improved?

[BubbleheadMd]

Well, there's that pesky "recession" thing, and the whole 9.1% unemployment thing that might be slowing it down a little...

[sailpb]

Interestingly, the decline started prior to the recession.

[kd3pc]

too many "sitters" wishing, and not enough "doers" who will actually get out there and physically DO something....

I think you would find that other activities will have followed the same path, if they too require effort.

[sailpb]

I did look at several activities and they follow similar trends. If the doer/sitter trend is true - I wonder why this is so? Maybe the proliferation of media?? For what it's worth, the trend for the term 'couch potato' has been on the increase slightly in the same time period. LOL

[Minnewaska]

Cost is growing as a percentage of disposable income. Same in aviation.

The ratio is being hurt from both sides, cost and income.

Further, in household budgets, cars for every member of the family, cell phones, cable TV, Internet access, etc are all lowering disposable income. These are now considered necessities by most that past generations were not burdened by.

[sailpb]

Interesting, true, and related to the doer/sitter and media proliferation ideas. However, trends for those terms were relatively stable or declining in the same time period.

[SJ34]

In 2004, if I was looking for something sailing related on the net I would google "Sailing". Now I bypass the search and go directly to the sites I know.

But, sailing will never be as mainstream as say jet skiing, bicycling etc.

[sailpb]

This may be true as well. Maybe people have just become more inclined to go directly to the sites they know rather than using Google - as the web has grown up. Never thought of that.

[Jeff_H]

In terms of numbers of people actually getting into the sport, based on sources like US Sailing and BoatUS, the high point in sailing has generally been seen as the 1970's and the sport has declining since. That said there have been small increases in sailing which have occurred for external reasons. One of these blips occured in the mid- 2000's as fuel prices increased and boomers began to think about retirement perhaps on sailboats. Those of us in construction related industries began to see the decline in the economy in 2007 and consequently some of the optimism which fueled the mid 2000's blip would have wained and begun the decline (or what I would call the return to normal) in the sail side of the boating industry.