I love to see new sailors asking questions like "how do I start a new regatta?". Excellent! We need more folks that are willing to take the time to give back to our sport. Promoting and running a regatta is hard work and takes lots of volunteers.

Hans Meijer, the PRO of the CRAC Summer Sizzler which I help to promote, can attest to the amount of labor involved. I help out because I appreciate all of the work done by others to bring races to the water for us to enjoy. It is truely rewarding labor, when you see the smiles on the sailors faces!

On the Chesapeake Bay, we have CRAC that holds the bulk of the area's top regattas. CRAC has a few very dedicated individuals-Mark Schneider, Jodie Perkins, and others. CRAC has insurance that we use for our regatta and they supplied the marks, flags and JODIE!!!! It really helps to have an umbrella organization to go to for a starting place. Look for one of these groups to contact.

Without Hans Meijer the event would not take place. You have got to have good volunteers-trust me! You cannot do it yourself.

I understand your frustration when it comes to the "isolationism" within our sport. For the CRAC Summer Sizzler 5 Regatta, I invited and talked the event up to many different class, including Hobie 20/Tiger/16s, Inter 20, and Formula 16/Formula 18. None of these classes showed, despite one of them asking for a class start and trophies (which I purchased) as recently as the Chesapeake 100 dates! Instead we sailed with two classes with 16 F-18HTs and 5 A-Cat. Everyone had a blast! I am sorry that the other classes chose to turn their back on our efforts and the regatta, but they lost the opportunity to party on PLAYSTATION and race in 8 great races (with great conditions)!!!

Anyway, if I can help you in anyway, please e-mail me. Like Mary said, "build it and they will come", if you keep plugging!

Regards,

W.F. Oliver