The parallel with sailing boats came in my mind just a few days ago, when
I heard in the radio a report about the big annual boat exhibition (Salon
Nautique) which was just starting here. lA manufacturer was interviewed, he
was saying that their production is stil growing, no problem with the market
but rather to be able to keep the production at a rate coping with the
demand. He was not speaking of cheap small boats, but of 40 ft and above
sailing boats.

I have some ideas on the subject as I practised sailing before I began
gliding and owned a 8m boat with which I cuised along the french coasts of
Britanny and also made travels to England and Ireland. My reflexion was
that most of the things that were mentionned in these discussions as
things which may discourage people to start or continue gliding are also
present in sailing and sailing is nevertheless growing.

Gliding depends heavily on meteorological conditions, sailing also. It may
be worse for sailing. If you go to your favorite gliding field and it rains,
you have lost your day but not your money. If you hired a sailing boat for
a week (in the size of 40ft, most people don't own a boat but rather hire
it) and the weather don't allow to make the cruise you have planned, you
have lost your time and your money.

Gliding is suffering for excess of regulation. For boats, at least in France
the situation may be worse. In fact among things that decided me to stop
sailing and sell my boat, there was two changes in the regulation I
considered as stupid, the first one reducing the maximum distance allowed
from a shelter from 100 to 60 nautical miles, making the direct travel from
Scilly Islands to Ireland impossible, the second one no more allowing the
same inflatable dinghy to be used both as a tender and as a rescue boat,
and I didn't had place for both.

Gliders are expensive, boats also. The thechnology for building them is very
similar and involves a lot of manpower. A former french boat manufacturer
has even built under license a small number of Cirrus and Janus.

I don't know why despite a similar amount of related hassle, sailing is
still growing while gliding is declining. Certainly the medias, TV, radio
and nesspapers play some role. I heard about the Salon Nautique in the
radio, I heard about the Vendee Globe, the one man race around the world,
I never heard about gliders. However, when I started sailing about 30 years
ago, it was almost ignored as gliding is now. Another thing maybe that
sailing may seem most "obvious" and/or "natural" to most people, as sailing
boats exist since thousands of years, while most people are even not aware
that gliders exist, as the first ones were built about only one century ago.