Intersting, Rhody, but of course the number of craft built in each ISAF class varies enormously and the big numbers belong to the boards and the dinghies.

It looks like all the International cat classes combined sell about 800 boats each year. The F18 is the top seller and claims 300 boats built each year for the last five years.

In comparison, both the Opti (4040 yr/18,713 last 5) and Laser (3,151 and 15,048) outnumber the F18 construction 10 to 1. Even the "boring old" Int 420 alone sells 435 boats per year (and that's not counting the Club 420).

In the boards, the RSX, FW, Techno and Raceboard each claim 1,556-1,000 boards each year. There's many more Funboards built and many are used for competition, but no numbers are given.

Of course, in terms of boats built the yacht classes drop well back (some International classes haven't built a single boat some years). Then again, they have 2-10 crew and tend to last a long while.

When just one dinghy class (Lasers*) outsells all the International cat classes COMBINED by a factor of 4 to 1, and the LEAST popular board easily outsells the MOST popular cat**, the claim that "25% of all competition is in multis" looks a bit odd. It's only a minor point, but on the first page of this thread there's several allegations that the "mono establishment" suffers from ignorance and arrogance - maybe it's not all on one side. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />


* Leaving the Opti out of the discussion.

** "popular" as in fastest-selling

PS Mary good point about class membership being an unreliable figure. One class manufacturer claims 360 members, but only 5 boats turned up to the nationals the last 2 years. That means their claim of 360 members backfires and they have to take the "world's most apathetic class" award <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Last edited by garda; 03/25/07 02:59 PM.