Mary,

I agree with you. Only a couple of rules; stick with the spirit of the original event.

1) More than 1 class could would be Ok but no more than 2-3 to keep max # of boats in each one. First to finish wins. This is easiest on the race commitee, easiest for spectators and provided imediate info to the racers.
2) Sail what you brought. The conditions in 1000 miles will be so varied the probability of each boat having a day in its favor is pretty good. Brand new production boats are comming out all the time, why should they be treated any different than somebodies home project. An equal oportunity event.
3) Most importantly keep it as low cost as possible. 2 weeks off work with travel, and loging is expensive enough. Most sailors I know do not have the time or drive to set up a sucessfull advertizing campain. Massive sponsorship should not have to be required. (As a side not to that, you can not expect to have the participants fund a purse for the event. A lot of people entering an event like this would have goals of being mid pack, or just finishing. Those people will not be attracted to an event if they then have to fund 20K for someone elses purse. I feel getting the enrolment up and then feeding some media to get event sponsored smaller purses would seem to me a slower but more sound way of growing this feature.)

Participation in all cat regattas is down. My take on this type of event is that it should be no different than every race. We should concentrate on increasing attendance. I personally love the competitive aspect of racing, but I go to events for the people and the "party". For me there needs to be both to make it worth spending time attending an event.

Matt