Hey Mark,

You DID read the whole interview, right?

Hobie said "You had to have good rules..." Believe it or not, the BEST PROs preach EXACTLY what Hobie was doing, at Advanced Seminars. You have to know what the sailors want, and run the regatta accordingly. There are rules in the RRS that allow this. It's sad if it's taken 20 years for this obvious concept to catch on...

I totally disagree with your notion that "the life style sailors are gone." When was the last time you attended a Hobie regatta, especially Madcatter or Rochester, or any of the Hobie Fun Days in RI?

Mainly because of the sucess of Hobie, we've been successful enough to do our own thing without needing yacht clubs. So, how would they possibly know whether we follow rules? Most mono sailors have never met any cat sailors. Things like putting a cat in the America's Cup, which we had nothing to do with, has probably hurt us (in their eyes) more than anything else.

One way that we hurt ourselves is that when we do try to get into yacht clubs, we don't want to pay to play. We've become too used to ridiculously cheap regattas, and not having to pre-register.

Yes, everything Hobie did was worth it.

Mike