I love sailing

Wow, what a lot of comments and thank you to everyone who voted in favour of the picture. To add some clarity (hopefully), yes there has been a little post processing. I have increased the contrast using the ‘Clarity’ element of Corel's Paint ShopPro Photo X2. Thats all, sometimes even nature does great work as well. The yacht is doing approx 15-18 knots (approx 20mph) so there is a bow wave that occurs naturally at that speed caused by approx 15 tonnes of boat moving through the water.
For what it is worth; in my humble opinion photography is a wonderful art form that has always encouraged and embraced purity and experimentation. As with any art form, different types of photographs appeal to different people, different styles appeal to different people, untouched, enhanced or a form of digital art that bears little or no relation to the original image have always been the subject of much debate between the purists and those in the pursuit of something different . But isn't that the point of our wonderful hobby/profession? We can do it and love it whilst we are doing it! Experiment or don't, I don’t think anyone is trying to deceive here, I am sure we are all just trying to create great images that people (hopefully) will enjoy looking at. Thanks again for the comments, it is great that a simple photo can be the cause of such passionate debate. You have to love photography for that reason alone!!

It gives the photo a very dramatic effect. I like the almost illustration look.

For me, the important is that the picture looks like you the way you envision it in your mind (except for journalistic photo of coure where it as to represent reality as is. But for artistic picture, if it is pleasing to see, well you have accomplished your mission).

Would you care sharing some of your post processing steps ?

There was a time when during the photo development process we played with different types of paper, the length of time we left in in the chemicals, heck we sometimes even re-exposed the photo paper in order to get the (then) cool effect called solarization. 50 years later, as a result of this thing called progress and that other thing called software, the extent to which one can get the most out of a photograph, or better, an image is only limited by one's imagination. However, the basic principle remains: using available tools to achieve a desired result. So please stop it with the "too much PP" it sounds like those who complained about auto-focus or programmed AE when they came into play, or the pre-historical cave artist bitching that Leonardo da Vinci abused highly sophisticated tools. By the way...great image IWO Photos!

would it look as good without all the processing? I think not.

The bow wave to the right seems like an add-on in pp too

I don't know how much PP has been used here - but as someone who has spent many many hours and days sailing in the Solent, I can say that in certain combinations of wind, cloud etc. the light can be very dramatic. I suspect this shot has had some "help", but maybe not as much as you may be thinking. (lets hope that the photographer can let us know)
Figs

Was this a photography competition, or a photo illustration competition? Clearly this scene has never been seen in the real world.