Its a tricky one

at our club we sail A class, Stealth , Hurricane 5.9sx , Tornado olympic Sport ,Darts in all guises, we have run high performance cat regattas attracting the rest too , F16 , spitfires, f18s etc , and youngsters are not interested in cat sailing , think they are boring and for OLD farts with dull banter I'm afraid to say , they can be tempted to crew now and again , but look for rewards . Loch Ness race still attracts their attention though because it makes your balls grow <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
My sons moved from toppers to 29er youngest at only 12 and the helm, when you see kids flying about at hyper speed in these relatively (to cats and other monos ) very wobbly boats there would be no comparison , they quickly out grew the 29er after mastering it (they got too big !) , now sail 4000's want a 49er , foiling 600's or any other hp skiff they could get their paws on

When I was young cats were miles ahead in performance and glitz and quite rare , things to aspire too , the array of modern hp monos weren't about then .

Exspense of cats left them for later life .

Whilst cat sailors think they are cutting a dash on the edge of life compared to the younsters antics on skiffs its a bit pedestrian and safe for them ! and lets face it if we are to be honest we know its a LOT easier to sail a cat in any conditions when you know how .

only hope previously of getting young kids into cats was for olympic aspirations , but thats bin feked now ,

Still I hear theres some young uk cat sailors out sailing VX40s as we speak with alingi so theres hope there.

as cats sailing profile grows slowly and a cheap supply of HP cats filter down there will inevitabably some youth pickup .