My daughter's 2 at the moment. She should be swim-capable by 4 or so and I'm hoping to let her go solo by around 7 or 8 (judging by the neighbours kids riding bikes etc)... but one thing I've learnt in the last two years is that One should never plan more than 5 minutes in advance.

I am only just 70 kg's so the plan is to build, sail, learn about cats, probably modify the design and re-build in the next few years before she is old enough to decide for herself if she wants to join the fun. Her mum is set on getting her into competitive motorcyling, but that is just a bottomless money pit (yes, even more so than sailing).

On the topic of designs, I am looking at the Tabby at the moment, but will talk to Ncik about modifying the design a bit. I'm happy to go through a few hull iterations over the space of a few years: hulls are the cheap part of small cats/dinghies these days, so if things go well, I hope to be sailing something reasonably refined by the time my daughter's old enough to join in.

I'm happy to donate $50 for a sail number... where is the money going? Is there any activity outside this forum (an official website even)?

On a different note (this post is getting long... sorry) I realised there might be some confusion over what I meant by a "single equipment" rule. I don't mean single manufacturer or design, I was referring to some means to stop people having multiple rigs/foils/whatever that they swap out depending on the conditions on the day. What you rig up on the first day of a regatta should be what you use all regatta, barring accidental failure... Just keeps costs down, although I admit I can't see anyone spending that sort of money on a boat like this (yet).