What it Was.., What it Is.., What it Could Be!

by Mary Wells

Rick and I have revived NAMSA (North American Multihull Sailing Association). And I know a lot of you are saying, "What the heck do we need THAT for — don't we already have enough organizations?" And some of you are asking, "Isn't that what the Multihull Council is for?" And others are saying, "Oh, goodie, maybe NAMSA will give me a better handicap rating."

My answers to those are:

1. Maybe we don't need NAMSA at all.
2. And, No, that is NOT what the Multihull Council is for.
3. And FORGET IT about handicap ratings. That is done very ably by the Multihull Council Portsmouth Committee and specifically Darline Hobock.

Nevertheless, NAMSA's time for usefulness may have rolled around again, so we have made it official as a nonprofit organization, just in case it is needed. And I think it already is!
NAMSA started back in the late ‘50's or early ‘60's when there were many different types of catamarans and trimarans being developed and few one-design class associations. It provided a communication link among all these different boats through its newsletter and a way for them to race together by developing handicap ratings. (This reincarnation, however, has absolutely NOTHING to do with handicap ratings.)
When Hobie Alter created the Hobie 14 in the late 1960's and put multihulls on the sailing map, one-design sailing took over and there was less need for NAMSA, because the new one-designs flooding the market had strong class associations and regatta structures and their own newsletters. Now all that is changing, for better or for worse.
Everybody keeps looking for answers as to why catamaran racing/sailing is on the decline.And the answers are not that we are not getting any new blood into the sport or that the manufacturers are trying to build a different boat for every sailor out there or that the class associations and fleets are not doing a good job.
The true answer is that it is not on the decline at all. It just appears that way because we were on an artificial mountain in the 1970's and into the 1980's. It is just a natural evolution of multihull sailing back to where it left off before Hobie Alter got a spread in Life Magazine in the early-mid 1970's. A hundred thousand people said, "Wow, that looks like fun" and bought boats, and a lot of them got involved in racing. For a while. But they were not true-blue sailors who were interested in staying with the sport for the long haul. They had their fun in the sun and went on to other things. So now we are getting back to the true-blues and the hard-cores who really care.

The bonuses are that because of the Hobie phenomenon:

• We probably have much bigger numbers now than we would have if we had continued on the same course we were on back in the 1960's before Hobie Alter popularized the "beach cat."
• We have gained respectability within the mainstream monohull sailing establishment. (I say "gained," because we are not there yet.)
• We got a Multihull Council in US Sailing.
• Almost everyone in the world now knows what a catamaran is (even if they refer to all of them as Hobies).
• We have an extensive regatta structure throughout the United States that many monohull sailors must envy.

So let's be grateful for the blessings that Hobie Alter and Life Magazine brought to the budding multihull world back then. But now it looks like we have to pick up where we left off — with a whole bunch of different classes of boats and a relatively small group of people who are in it for the long haul.
Development, design and high-tech are now the big things again, just as they were back in the 1950's and 1960's. It's like it all went underground during the Hobie hayday years and now it has resurfaced with a vengeance. The wheel has almost come full circle. One-design racing is slowly dying as a result of the great number of different boats on the market, and open-class racing is again becoming common. Experimentation has again become popular in the quest for the perfect speed machine rather than the perfect one-design.
It is sad to see one-design sailing in big fleets coming to the end of an era. But it is also exciting to see all this creativity bringing new dimensions to the sport.

So where does NAMSA come into the picture?
For the big picture let's call it togetherness, which catamaran sailors are notoriously bad at because they are very independent and are widely scattered in a myriad of different classes of boats.
NAMSA (unlike the Multihull Council, which is basically an advisory body within US Sailing) would be able to actually DO things. What things?
Well, here are just a few ideas:

• NAMSA could charter multi-class fleets that are not presently affiliated with any class association and put them under the umbrella of NAMSA so they can give each other mutual help with problems and also have a lobbying voice with our governing body, US Sailing, through our Multihull Council.
• NAMSA could pull together all the multiclass associations already in existence — like CRAM (Catamaran Racing Association of Michigan) and CRAW (Catamaran Racing Association of Wisconsin) and CRAC (Catamaran Racing Association of the Chesapeake) and OCRA (Ohio Catamaran Racing Association) and ORCA (Ontario Racing Catamaran Association) and TBCS (Tampa Bay Catamaran Sailors) and CABB (Catamaran Association of Biscayne Bay), SHBCC (Sandy Hook Bay Catamaran Club), and at least two MSA's (Multihull Sailing Associations) in Texas, to name just a few that I am aware of.
• The established class associations themselves, including the North American Hobie Class Association, Prindle Class Association, Nacra Class Association, Inter Class Association, Shark Class Association, Tornado Class Association, and Isotope Class Association, need an umbrella organization that can bring them together to discuss mutual problems and issues facing the associations these days. Right now they are just names in the US Sailing Directory.
• Are there class associations in North America for the Darts, the Sea Sprays, the Unicorns, the Sol Cats? Is the Pacific Class Association still alive? (Last I heard, they were still having Nationals.) If such associations exist, they need a wider forum to publicize their existence, and they would gain that by joining NAMSA. The same thing would be true for the Formula 18 class and the Formula 20 Class, if they gain a foothold in North America.
• For individual sailors with boats that do not currently have any class association at all, NAMSA could be a sort of "multiple-class" association to help them with their needs and problems and questions.
• There are new types of multihulls that need to be assimilated into the existing regatta structures — like the Hobie Waves and WindRider tris at the slow end of the scale and the Hobie TriFoiler and the Windrider Rave at the potentially super-high end of the speed scale. And what if Proas become a popular item — they might want to race, too, and would have special needs. Fleets and yacht clubs are going to need guidance on how to best handle these situations.
• NAMSA could sponsor a multi-class Open National Championship Regatta every year, with separate scoring and trophies for fleets of five or more and separate starts as and where necessary, whether divided by relative Portsmouth numbers or number of boats in a specific fleet or by special course needs of certain fleets.
• NAMSA could line up expert volunteer consultants to answer questions about sails and sail materials, boat designs, rigging components, construction materials, and even how to build a boat yourself.
• NAMSA, in conjunction with the Multihull Council (I would hope), could help if you are having a problem with getting multihulls accepted into certain events that are being put on under the auspices of US Sailing. Or what if you are losing beach access because of some local or federal government decision and need some support in waging your battle? Or what if you belong to a sailing club that doesn't want catamarans at their regattas because they are "dangerous"?
• NAMSA could be a forum for bringing together the various multihull manufacturers and dealers and suppliers, so they, too, can discuss mutual issues and can have dialogue with the sailors on how those on the industry side of it can help the sport and also increase sales so they can survive — sailors need them just as they need the sailors.

Right now I hope you will think about it and send me your opinions and comments. I won't have time to deal with it until January, and probably neither do you.

There will be more about this in the next issue, after I get some sailor input