There is no red herring here, we have seen it happen. Division 12 was one of the first to adopt non-Hobie boats; our regattas no longer exist. This is not the fault of the non-Hobie sailors, but everyone, including the Hobie sailors that chose to stop racing. And, those who kept racing, unfortunately weren't effective in bringing in new sailors. Fleet 448 was doing the best job, but those numbers have been slowly diminishing as well.

That does NOT mean I am against this F18 proposal, BUT, I am not 100% in favor of it, either. We need to be sure that we are looking at the whole, big picture to keep this sport alive in 5-10 years. That means LEARNING FROM OUR MISTAKES.

Read my prior post again. The mistake that I am referring to is expecting that bringing in new boats will solve the whole problem. The answer isn't necessarily to exclude the new classes (although that has worked in some areas), but to really focus on new blood.

Even before the Hobie-only rule, our Division 12 regattas were dwindling to a point of being barely sustainable.

This is really, really hard to discuss over the web without someone taking something totally out of context, but it's not much easier in person. I just want everyone to be sure that they don't expect the F18 (or any other "quick" answer) to solve this problem long-term. It may help in the short term, which is also very important, but efforts need to be made immediately to figure out how to get new sailors onto our boats, not our existing sailors onto new boats.

Mike