There are so many cat designs already on the market already, I'm just not seeing another design as the answer. And, I don't know how many ways to say this, the 29er is not our primary problem.

Wouter, the last thing I have time for is to get into an argument with you, but you completely contradicted yourself and bolster my case in the message above. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

First, you say I'm missing the point because I said designing the boat(s) isn't the important part.

Then, you say "Then the critical part comes" and admit it's not as easy as just designing the boat, that the infrastructure has to be built, sold to the MNAs, etc. This is what I've been saying the whole time: the infrastructure is where they are killing us, not the boat design.

And to MarkMT's question, I don't think it's unrealistic, from a technical point of view, to have kids start on cats. Cats are inherently MORE stable than monohulls, and Optis flip all the time. The design problem is, most (all?) cats are designed with too much sail area for a 6-year old to handle. If you don't start them on cats, why would they switch later?

I still say that even if we had really cheap, easy to sail cat, we'd get nowhere against the mono programs, without a massive paradigm shift. If we can get high schools and colleges to have cat racing, that might be a start.

I am extremely interested in this because I have a 10-month old, and I'm trying to figure out where this is ultimately heading. I'd love him to be racing cats at 6 years old (as a skipper). The only problem is, there's nothing less technical than a Hobie 16 racing in any sufficient numbers, and those are raced by adults or older teens.

So, I may have to buy an Opti...

Mike