Yeah, but that is a photo of brightly coloured balloons against a clear blue sky
= very bright, colourful subject.
Black and white sail against brown water and distant dark green foliage
= rather flat, dark subject.
I mean really, you're not going to get anything brighter that balloons in the sky. It's practically an ad for washing detergent or colour TVs.

It is the subject, not the operator, not the camera, not Photoshop.
You could turn it up by oversaturating it (Ctrl + U), keep it subtle. I've found setting the colour whatsit settings in the camera to 'Vivid' will add punch nicely when you want it. A polarising filter makes a world of difference too.
-> Make the 2nd one black & white and tweak the levels, I think the sail will really stand out. Crop to portrait too?
Should we start a photography thread? I know heaps, therefore bugger all.
All I ever do is crop, levels/curves, colour balance, a little saturation. The best photos don't need anything. Sometimes I'll do the thingy, you know where you expose some sections more or less than others, that thing.
I've only ever taken one "roll" of windsurfing shots, and I lost them all in a PC crash. Pissy zoom so mostly wide angle shots from the train that actually turned out quite well. Gave a good feeling of the location and number of windsurfers on the water at once. Had a great one of Haircut backwards, but then is there a photo in existence of him not upside down or backwards?