Hi Keith

I think you are comparing apples and oranges here. Keel boats and Power boats are self contained vessels. They offer shelter, a head, fishing platform, swim platform, galley and a place to keep some of your junk. Marina's or botel's are great solutions when you can come down and hop onto your self contained vessel and go boating. People have no problem in paying for this facility if they don't want to trailer a boat. (The power boat launch at Sandy Point is essentially a marina except that you trailer in your self contained vessel and then go boating.) This is very different then cat sailing for recreation.

Notice... i did not say sport.... A sport implies some sort of competition. For that... you need to gather a group of people at some location, organize around some rules and then go play. IE... our regattas.

I believe that families and casual boaters find the undeveloped beach too uncomfortable to be practical. As Mary W noted... Its a me me me versus a we we we orieintation.

You wrote:
I still think that to grow the sport we need to reach out to and bring in new sailors, not try to shift the habits of existing ones. And I'm not sure raising the amount of money required will help unless the image/societal part begins to draw the money crowd.

Well my point is that cat sailing is a great family activity and by not choosing to support family friendly facilites aka yacht clubs in liu of cheap cheap cheap water access we are Not and Never will attract new sailors.

You wrote:
So maybe both approaches offer benefits and drawbacks, but both approaches are in full use for monos and dinghys as well. I wouldn't blame one for keeping the sport down.

I disagree for the reasons just stated and secondly I do not know of a single dinghy sailor or group of sailors who store their boats on undeveloped beaches. They are in clubs or dinghy friendly marinas!

Keit h wrote:
That having been said, I do believe that we need some permanent facilities that cater more to cats around here. But I'm not sure I agree they need to or should be AYC, PPYC, EYC caliber/cost facilities.

In our 5 state region, Podickery, (Deluxe) Rehobath and Potomac PRSA and Spray Beach (Excellent), Sandy Hook (good) and your club WRCSA (spartan) are the availble locations. Obviusly more locations would be helpful in attracting new sailors, simply from the travel to the club perspective.

Final point... I think that your comparison of costs for Fairwinds... a marina with a ramp... and the the costs of keeping your boat at one of the clubs would be about 20 bucks a month difference between them all.!

Take Care
ps... good luck with your rebuilding project!

Mark