John,

I think your plan will work great at Clearwater.



Just thinking, if we could establish a ladder program using the open classes at several other events during the season, maybe that could help to boost US Sailing membership, too. People will start thinking in terms of "This regatta is not just the Cakewalk Regatta, it is also a stepping stone to the National Multihull Championship." And maybe having a points system for all these preliminary ladder regattas would give people not only more incentive to join US Sailing but also to go to as many of the designated ladder-step regattas as possible, because the finalists will be chosen to go on to the Alter Cup Qualifier based upon their accumulated points over the season. Very similar to what the Hobies used to do with their points system to get to their National Championships. (This would also solve the problem of the areas being so large, because there could be ladder events throughout the entire area, accessible to everyone.)



I know NAMSA would be happy to help do the work to make this happen, because one of NAMSA's primary goals is to help the Multihull Council implement ideas that the Council is basically impotent to act upon within the US Sailing structure.



Wow, you are going to go to that US Sailing meeting armed with more information than any other Area Rep! Be careful, you might get elected to a higher position, and we need you doing what you are doing right now.