I will like to hear the excuses on this topic thank you for posting it.

On the West Coast we have two groups. There are those who are members of Yacht Clubs and those who are not. Most of the Formula 18 and A-Cat sailors are members. Most of the Hobie 16 sailors are not. I mention these three classes of catamarans because they are the largest group that consistently race in this area. Most of the racing now is run out of Yacht Clubs. There are races that my Yacht Club will accept non-Yacht Club members to. We encourage membership of some organization that is an affiliate of the Southern California Yachting Association. Some of these are inexpensive and will let the sailors attend more events, still no sale. I do not understand this mentality. To ask Yacht Clubs to open their doors to catamaran sailing then not support the structure that they are a part of is ridiculous. Find out what it takes and do it.

Very few catamaran regattas are run off the beach and manned by the sailors like the old’n days. That would require someone to own a Committee boat and several mark boats. There are also Marks and other items that it takes to run regattas. The local Hobie fleet used to have a rather substantial trailer that carried all the gear to run a regatta. I do not know if that even exists anymore. It takes a ton of commitment to run an event. We now count on the Yacht Clubs who are set up and like to do this.

Another benefit to being a member of the Yachting organization that supports your regattas is, this is where we will find our future sailors. It used to be that catamarans were sold at boat shows and street visible dealers that were place every 10 miles or so in California. We are losing dealers so that you count on parts by mail there are so few now. We cannot promote this sport on the internet, you have to see it. To that end we have to be in front of the people most likely interested in our sport, other sailors. There are many people thinking about getting catamarans in my area because they see us sailing. It is fast, easy and relatively cheap compared to some of the alternative high performance boats out there.

Thank you for listening,
Dan DeLave