Since I posted those CRAW videos of Macca/Mischa, I can look at the statistics of who has viewed them.

So far, there have been over 3,000 combined views. Over 65% of the viewers are over the age of 45 with the biggest group being 45-54 (53%). Under 35 is less than 10%. Also, only 5% of the 3K are female.

Based on who I see at regattas, I think these numbers are representative.

I know there are efforts to bring in the younger sailors, but I think most of thse are targeted the under 25 year olds. Are there efforts out there to target and promote to the 25-45 group?

Seems there could be a dry spell waiting for the younger than 25 group to come along.

I guess, our hobby is too expensive - at least when you want to be competitive.

Young guys are at work. Girls had to go potty and fix their hair.

Are there spin boats out there that are less expensive targeted to that 25-45 group, I wonder?

Do you do more to promote H14/H16 sailing to develop a feeder pool? Those boats are certainly inexpensive and can hook you into cat sailing. It did for me.

The youngsters have people telling them what to do all day, the last thing that they are gonna do is trawl around the internet and look for more instruction!

The beauty of our sport is that you can drift in and out of it at any age and yet still find a type of sailing where you can be competitive

I think the biggest problem is, most of the 14-25yr. old --would be- sailors are too wrapped up in Facebook to spend any time (let alone money) outdoors doing...anything.

Not sure what you are saying - that there are a lot of 25-45 cat sailors out there that don't look for info on the internet? or that there aren't but when their budget allows, they drift into cat sailing?

BTW, I am one of those old guys who started sailing at 35 and started looking to the internet for information only when I outgrew my hobie cat.

Unfortunate, but true. My oldest is an internet addict, but I hold out hope for his younger sister who I took to a CRAW regatta last year. They have Bic's for the kids to sail and I think she is hooked. I am looking for a Sunfish or something like that for her to sail this summer.

We have plenty of sailors, the sport is about as big as it needs to be.

If we had a lot more people and boats, where would you put them? Racine is the only place I've been recently that could host a really large turn out.

Not talking about now necessarily. I am talking about the future of the sport, so that when my daughter wants to race cats, there is somebody to race against.

Please tell me your joking!

Can't help with that.

It seems like the Hobie 16 class is having a resurgance, and the Wave class is growing. I think that is due to the high cost for any new spinnaker boat, vs. a used Wave or H16. There seems to be more used H16's around, for a lot less money, than used spinnaker cats.

The cost of entry is always an issue, even more so now, in "The greatest economic downturn since the great depression..." But then you've got to find kids who are motivated enough to get outdoors and learn to sail.

With today's Internet Generation (and I've got 4 of them) they want everything, right now, and are not too willing to spend any time (or money) "Learning" to do anything other than how to text.

Don't forget video games.

Our club makes those Bics available and promote family involvement, etc. Maybe you buy a bunch of old H14's and quadruple stack them and bring them to each club race.

So once you give it up or croak, to h*ll with Cat sailing?

I gave up baseball 35 years ago, but I still am a big fan of the sport and support it at all levels. I even go to Cubs games. Now that's dedication.

As Mark S. has pointed out many times traditional yacht clubs are the key here. They have the infrastructure to support youth programs and this is where the kids will get exposed to multihulls and in my opinion this is were the bulk of interest in cats will come from.

I agree they have the infrastructure, but do they indeed get exposed to multihulls here? Or is it pretty much moving up the line from monohull to the next larger/faster monohull?

Not disagreeing, just don't know what the exposure is.

The 40s are are the new 30s, etc!!!!!

We were discussing our recruiting strategies earlier this week and one proposal was to shoot for the above 20 something crowd that typically crew on monohulls. Annapolis has a lot of them and most cannot afford the big boat, let alone to race one. They appriciate speed, also.

Trying to maximize on the AC hype that is being generated.

Yacht clubs have had junior programs for at least 50 years ...sailing monohulls... These programs are run by adults for kids over summers during the work week.... July to August.

Hobie Cat has been one of the largest one design classes in the world for 40 years... For many years they have sponsored the only junior cat sailing program in the USA by hosting a few regattas or NA's on weekends. Primarily... the Hobie way of life is family oriented with parents sailing with their kids and this is our defacto junior program.

So... which program has generated more sailors?

I am shocked/surprised at how few current mulithull sailors came from the "sailed with my dad? training program. Something was missing!

We need to change our strategy. A cats, F18's are simply not the platform to get juniors out racing. The Hobie 16 is the boat for the USA right now.... maybe you can step up to an F16 down the road... but there are more issues around F16's then Hobie 16's for this purpose.

While it would be fantastic for Yacht Club junior programs to add a mulithull high performance program to their offerings... I suspect hell freezing over has a better shot.

So we do what we can... in the mid Atlantic region Hobie Div 11 has a very strong and active H16 fleet AND A NUMBER OF JUNIOR SAILORS. Our view is that we try to get these juniors who usually race against the adults to be more like the Yacht club world and participate in a Junior regatta strictly against other juniors. We are trying to leverage our very small window of opportunity (kids get older...procreation is slow... not to mention expensive) by trying to put together a junior regatta with the Hobie 16 junior racers joined by some juniors from Yacht clubs. The goal is to achieve a critical mass of juniors for a good regatta and generate interest among the junior racers from yacht clubs for high performance mulithull racing.

With the America's Cup action on high performance cats ready to take off in San Fransisco... I believe it's now or never!

Thanks to the Div 11 sailors who work to make loaner boats available... we have the opportunity. Last year we held a Junior Olympics at Rock Hall.... This year we are hoping to participate in the Barnegat Bay JO's... Our intention is to invite some Yacht Club Juniors from Long Island Sound and the Chesapeake Bay region to take the opportunity and go Hobie 16 racing. I should emphasize... This kind of thing is ONLY POSSIBLE because the Div 11 16 sailors have been very generous with loaning their boats and time.

Every region should look for an opportunity in their neck of the woods and step up to the plate.

The alternative will be to wait for more guys like TEH who stumble onto cats, get hooked and learn to sailboat race.
I think if you surveyed the big boat crews... you would be stunned at how few of these sailors have any experience in a dinghy beyond a 420... years and years ago. Still these are sailors who go racing... getting them onto a beach cat is much much easier then trying to get a newbie or a recreational sailor to go racing!

I have this question. I've day sailed for years, but certainly don't know the ins and outs of course racing. I'm thinking of doing the upcoming Macho. Who is willing to help new people or where do you go for help.
Thanks
Forrest