Regular SW readers may scratch their heads over our cover story
"5 Ways to Start Racing," but not for long, I hope. Whatever boats we
race, you and I are united by a shared desire to see more of them on
the line. More selfishly, if you're a skipper, you need good crew; if
you're a crew, an enthusiastic skipper. At the very least, you need to
know somebody will buy your old racing boat someday.

Via our "Racing Forum" at www.sailingworld.com, several readers
provided most of the ideas for the article, including real-life
experiences of how each method worked. Hopefully the story will
encourage neophyte sailors to give racing a try, but in your hands, it
might also help to inspire a friend. Or maybe you can use it tointrigue
some non-racers at your club,  marina, or even at work. Feel free
to pass on a copy or print part of the story in a newsletter, as well.
Or, if you're involved in a website, link to it at sailingworld.com.

Besides magazine stories in this issue (see also Jon Ziskind's story on
crewing, p. 56), in April we encouraged Sail America to help raise the
profile of racing at their recent Pacific Sail Expo with a "Discover
Racing" center. Lynda Myers of the Yacht Racing Association of SF Bay
provided the organization for the effort, and the booth was staffed by
racers from local racing fleets.

Sailing World, Ronstan, and Lewmar also contributed, especially the
latter with their winch grinding platform, on which sailors could try
grinding in the equivalent of 60 feet of America's Cup boat jibsheet.
The Treasure Island Sailing Center and the local Etchells fleet both
had nearby booths (and the latter also took visitors in four-boat races
just off the docks). The Discover Racing idea can be improved, but it
was a great start at creating more energy around racing at a show; it
also left me more convinced than ever that people get started in racing
through friends and family, or through the accessibility of a sailing
organization.

Take J/World graduate Elizabeth Paszkiewicz, a psychologist from
Oklahoma, who had a chance to use a friend's boat in the Caribbean, so
she took a liveaboard cruising course. She then shifted to racing
classes and now races her J/22 at Windycrest SC on Keystone Lake, and
her J/105 in Newport, R.I. "I think I'm going to buy a Finn, too," she
told me. "Your article last month reminded me of the only sailing I did
as a young person--decades ago--at the Warsaw University Sailing Club
in Poland. The Finn was the boat I learned to sail in."

You never know who will be crewing for you next weekend or buying a
boat to race against you. And unless you ask, you may never learn that
the mild-mannered psychologist next door already has the feel for
hiking straps and a tiller extension.

Despite living with sailors, my college roommate never sailed in
college, but learned soon after at Community Boating while working in
Boston. Next thing I knew, he was in graduate school in Chicago and
racing to Mackinac Island. He lives in Portland, Ore., now and isn't
sailing, but when I saw him recently, we drove by the dinghy park at
the nearby Willamette River SC and he told me, with his kids getting
older, he was ready to race again.

Keep an eye out for him and the thousands like him. And don't forget to ask them along.