Anyway, back to the original point of the thread, wasn't the original question something along the lines of: How is it that the Hobie 16 class is the only cat class on the list?
OK, and this has been discussed before but...let's look at the successes of the other classes on the list, disregarding they are not cats.
Thistle for one. Check out their web site
Thistle Class Association click on the contacts, and fleet listings, there's LOTS of names available for contact. I've crewed and helmed a Thistle last summer and I wasn't impressed with its performance, it's NOT an exciting boat. There are only 4,000 of them in existence yet must be 80 or 90% of them are being raced. Results? Big fleets. Regardless of the boat, big fleets are exciting. The Thistle guys love to take our H16 for a spin and are very open minded and inquisitive about cats. They have their other "toys", 5o5, Lasers, but they race Thistles. They've also chosen another, less expensive, "class" boat to boost membership in our club, Flying Scot. Big established fleets in our area.
Pardon me for being a broken record but, the 18 is the boat I like, 20 is the boat we race. The average fleet size of regattas we raced this year was probably 11 to 12 boats. Had to travel a quite a few miles to get there, but it was worth the trip. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />
