Bermuda Sailing Association president Tim Patton said the sport would be unsustainable in its current form if the funding figures released in last week’s Budget proved correct.According to the Department of Youth and Sport, sailing’s grant is estimated to remain at $25,000 for the 2011-2012 fiscal year, despite Minister Glenn Blakeney saying he wanted to designate it as a national sport.Patton, who said he had yet to be officially informed what his sport’s grant, or status, would be, said sailing ‘desperately needed’ a larger amount, with the $25,000 they had to operate on previously representing a 60 percent drop in funding on recent years.“We made our Budget request and met with the Minister (Blakeney) who indicated that he would help us as much as he could,” said Patton, “although I suspect that was before he was given his budget.“Neither I, nor the sailing association have heard anything officially. Clearly we would really, almost desperately, need more than $25,000.“We’re a fairly large organisation and we actually accomplish quite a lot, and $25,000 dollars doesn’t go very far at all. The $25,000 that we had last year represented a 60 percent drop from where we used to be. We’re still raising money as madly as we can from other sectors, but it won’t be sustainable in the long term.”Sailing has already proved that it can be successful on the World stage, with the likes of the Kirkland brothers, Owen Siese and Peter Bromby all more than holding their own at home and abroad.The grant sailing has received is a far cry from what they hoped they might get, especially after comments Blakeney made to members of the Bermuda Optimist Dingy Association in November when he said he was committed to ‘designating sailing a national sport’.Although the Minister later stepped back from the assumption that would mean more money for the sport, a comment on his behalf from Permanent Secretary Randy Rochester seemed to indicate otherwise.“The value of sailing and the tradition of our mariners history reflects the Minister’s deep appreciation and commitment to the sport,” said Rochester in November. “To this end the Minister hopes that appropriate resources can be allocated.“However, it would be remiss of the Minister to commit prematurely until such time as he has had the chance to review the Ministry’s entire fiscal standing. With that said, it does not prevent the Minister’s commitment to designating sailing as a national sport which is something he has been considering since assuming the substantive Ministry responsible for sports.”Not that Patton was asking for the earth anyway.Speaking before the Budget, the BSA president said his sport could quite easily survive on less than other national sports like cricket and football receive, and more than paid for itself with the events it brought to the Island.“We are probably the sport that brings the greatest amount of income into the Island through the ocean yacht races and things like the Gold Cup. They are tremendously beneficial to Bermuda’s tourism,” said Patton.“We also run the WaterWise programme, as well as our ‘normal’ sailing functions. Clearly there is something we want from it, and we’re hoping that with the designation will come some greater funding, we don’t need anywhere the level the other national sports got, and I think we’ve proved we can be successful with far less.“I can completely understand that it is very difficult for them to know where they are going to find the money to help us with this, but we can certainly promise to give them better value for money than they’ve been getting from some other sports. And, as I said, we’re not after millions of dollars, we can run the sport, we can move forward for a very reasonable amount.”However, Patton was speaking before a Budget that saw cricket’s funding slashed to just $200,000, while athletics, which has been one of the more successful sports in recent years also suffered.The Elite Athletes Assistance fund has been halved to $100,000 and that’s in year when Bermuda’s best are preparing for the Pan Am Games in October, and the London Olympics in 2012.