Hey Pat, Great topic.

Due to my vested interest in this whole thing, I have been studying cat sailing trends in depth for the past 10 years.

In the 80's in So Cal I was a young punk that built a skateboard ramp and Hawk, Hosoi, Gurrero, Team Madrid and a few other skaters would come over to my "Palm Ave Ramp" and skate for about 100 kids that would spontaneously show up. This is way before Hawk was a household name. First, these guys had skills, then they went out there and skated at some punk kid's house. They just showed up, and were good about teaching kids how to do tricks. They got the marketing thing going early, they were all representing their respective shops or companies. They plastered their stickers all over the place, skated and left. Then we all tried to copy their tricks. Great marketing by the local skate shops!

One thing that I have noticed with sailing is that active dealer/builder/factory support can really boost the numbers within a fleet/division. Not to say that this is the most important factor, but from what I've seen it does help.

Supporting a local dealer and letting them know you're there and what you need would in turn inspire them to help out with funsails, racing etc.

In the world of mail-order, ebay,(both of what I do, so I'm not talking down on them) and West Marine it's difficult to establish local relationships. If the local dealer doesn't know how to get involved, or doesn't have the money to get involved in events, they won't. Events are what the public sees. I hand out a ton of business cards at every event I attend, not only to sailors, but to general passers by.

I would encourage you to talk directly with your local dealer and let them know what you need within your area or division. Flash them some cash every now and then instead of going online, you'll get some support, I guarantee. Sometimes there is no local dealer and I understand it isn't possible, but most the time it is. Get a bunch of your friends together and have a "fleet meeting" with them.

I've been running my shop since 2003, and I'll tell you it's a tough racket, we are successful only because we have the support of our local sailors. In turn, at all of our regattas here in the Santa Cruz area, Surf City has at least 2 race support boats on the water. We couldn't do it if we didn't have support from our local sailors. We have a chase boat on the water for the SCYC Aclass events whenever possible, again due to the support from the class.

I think the next issue is lack of catamaran specific "Learn to Sail" classes. There are none in CA that I know of. People just don't know how to get involved. Fleet funsails with good press and an emphasis on getting new people into it is key. We did a "Try a Hobie Day" here a few years back with the local Hobie fleet and got 3 new people on boats of their own. The effort paid off!

The third thing, is lack of a youth sailing program. I tried to talk to the local university sailing instructor about setting up a class and his response was "those things pitchpole". Not exactly the response I wanted.

I think by taking this 3 pronged approach we would be very successful, and it's doable:

1)Supporting your local cat dealer if possible, get them involved. Get them doing events just like local bike/skate shops that sponsor races and demos. It's good for publicity.

2)Get involved with your fleet/div/etc. Do 2 highly publicized "Try a Cat" days a year. Just like the skateboard and bike clubs do demos and trial rides.

3) Get some sort of youth sailing program together in partnership with your local yacht club/university etc. Compared to Skating and BMX, sailing is a little different organizationally, but if you hang out at your local BMX track there's a similar element

Lot's of specifics to be worked out.