Phill says : "but I see development at club level as each club will set its own rules and develop them in accordance with local requirements."

Wouter says: If everybody and every local club does his own thing (own rules) then we simple don't have a class in the normal sense of the word and organisations like ISAF and local associations will not be impressed at all and steer all kids to lasers and other boats.

The reason all prior efforts folded is because they too concentrated on getting a boat design without planing to whole promotion, launching and growing portion around the design. It is a shame but a good design often doesn't sell itself. If everybody local goes his own route then the resulting fragmentation will make growing the (non-existant) class very difficult. Basically I fear we can't have it both way. Either we all do our own thing, as we cat sailors have done for decades now without any youth succes, or we agree to converge on a single design within a set time frame and that suits the planned promotion, launch and growth game plan the best and have a serious go at creating a succesful cat youth class.