It all kicked off with the tremendous showing our sailors put up in Athens. Ben Ainslie, Shirley Robertson, Sara Webb and Sarah Ayton came back with gold medals. Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield came back with silver. Nick Dempsey came back with bronze, along with Chris Draper and Simon Hiscocks.

Their success lifted sailing onto the front pages and into the broadcast media: this was the kind of coverage usually reserved only for disasters.

On top of Team GBR's success, we now have three initiatives designed to spread The Word of boating The Royal Yachting Association (RYA) - with help and funding from (among others) the British Marine Federation (BMF) - has devised one of the best funded, best thought out and best set up programmes to get people into boating.

The Onboard programme was launched at SIBS in the presence on HRH The Princess Royal. In short, it has a budget of around a £1million and aims to get 500,000 youngsters into boating over the next few years.

The local infrastructure is in place with a hit list of schools and a detailed presentation that outlines the benefits to youngsters and, above all, how easily and cheaply those youngsters can experience boating.

Next, we have the BMF's reality TV show devised by director of marketing, James Gower. Splash Camp has 10 boys and girls mucking about in boats and with lots of other things that float. The series is scheduled for Sunday mornings, with repeats on Wednesdays.

Finally, Tim Coventry, now UK Sailing's chairman, has cracked the International Sailing Federation (ISAF). As ISAF president, Paul Henderson initially resisted all attempts by the ISS to get it involved in promoting general boating.

But things change. The ISAF view has changed. And now Tim Coventry has the organisation agreeing to promote sailing to a wider audience. And he has got the promise of a decent budget as well.

Read Peter Poland's story on page 5: I think you'll find the new initiatives very exciting.