I obviously hope that NAHCA lets those handful of Hobie Yacht Clubs do what they want and offer starts to F18's and Waves... and those clubs that want to only do Hobie Tiger starts keep on with their program. I do HOPE that enough of those F18 and Wave sailors want to come and go racing with Hobie Yacht Clubs, more importantly.... the interest in supporting Hobie Yacht Clubs persists for years to come..
BUT, I won't let Bob's faulty conclusions shape the ongoing debate. Especially when Open Class Racing in 2010 is a RED HERRING.
The problems we had in the past stemmed from the fact that the invitation was open to every one-off design on the market.
Otherwise called open class.. This One -off design class provided racing for Hobie 21's, Hobie 20's. Hobie 17 sports and any other Hobie boat found in the USPN table who could no longer .. if ever... make class... These boats are infamous one-off's that no one has ever seen.
By 2010... the inconvenient problem is essentially over! These old boats are now much older and along with other dead boats from Prindle, Nacra, Mystere, are no longer being campaigned in many regions of North America ... At most they stagger out to the starting line for a special race once or twice a year. Open Class racing is a Red Herring.
Open class racing, on the Chesapeake has changed from 9 or 10 events a year... to three. We have two days of Distance Racing. (Race to Oxford) and two Open class starts at summer weekend dinghy regattas. The idea is to get 3 boats each from the surviving One Design classes and get at least 10 boats on the start line... These three Open events give the "one off" or in my words... dead boat society members a few opportunities to go racing on the weekends... The idea is that a new cat sailor is likely to have bought one of these old race boats... when they get the bug to .."see what it would be like to go racing... They will have a couple of weekend races to catch the bug.
Surviving OD classes are Hobie 16, Hobie 17, Hobie 18, A class, F16 class, Nacra 20.... The last two are essentially club One design classes. Oh, and the irony of it all... The major Open Class Race is the AREA C Qualifier for the HOBIE ALTER US SAILING CHAMPIONSHIP!
Hobie had a choice... Properly MANAGE the downsizing (Sounds like what you are trying to do now)... or pretend that good management was to stand on the flying H and yell "STOP... NO MORE..the one off boats are undermining our class and racing and must be tossed". Hobie's management guru's thought that by kicking out non Hobies that their racing and clubs would stop sliding downwards and stabilize on this magical plateau of One design racing. They had the wrong diagnosis and the slow slide to becoming a Hobie 16 only class continues unabated.
This allowed new classes to use the HCA to build their new class from scratch.
REALLY... What new class would that be?
The growing classes are F18's, A class, and F16's. Most of these sailors thought they were HELPING HOBIE FLEETS BY GOING TO THEIR RACES. Hobie mistakenly thought they had a monopoly on catamaran racing ...That sailors, faced with running their own small regattas, would get back on board with Hobie One Design Racing. So..the sailors in the three new classes simply partnered with Yacht clubs who welcomed them as new members and are willing to run more races then we have sailors.
Hobie Paper Yacht Clubs will be competing with Yacht Clubs with facilities for sailor participation.
Bob is asking the wrong question. It's not what other classes should Hobie classes partner with... rather, it's what Yacht Clubs should Hobie Yacht Clubs partner with in their region to have catamaran racing and their own organization survive.
