Apologies up front if any of this sounds inflammatory, or if I wander off topic.



It's only an excuse if you are the type of person who looks for excuses. If you're the type that says "I won, I'm the better sailor" and "I lost, the ratings suck", you'll always find an excuse. No excuses under one-design? Gimme a break. Sailor X won because he bought new sails. Sailor Y won because he has lower/higher crew weight.

I'm finding myself in a real slump in my racing lately, but the last thing I'm blaming is other people's ratings.

I have always believed, and I think this is the angle Mark is working - that for any of this to matter you have to add new sailors to the sport. Moving sailors from one class to another is just a shell game.

When you're dealing with low numbers and you're trying to build a Fleet, picking and choosing the boats will limit turnout, and some form of handicapping is absolutely the way to go. Having to buy an expensive boat to play is not going to happen when you're new to the sport. When numbers begin to increase, and people start to upgrade from the starter boat that got them in, they start to pick the boats that interest them and groups start to form, and now that they're hooked, spending some money is ok. We've seen this big-time in our club. When we get newbies (I mean new to cat sailing or sailing itself), it's usually "I've got an old FastCat 17.5, can I race with you guys?" Telling them no, you must buy the one-design we're all sailing to play would only reinforce the exclusionary reputation sailing has. For awhile we've had a rag-tag Fleet. I guess we still do. But now our numbers are growing. And what do you know, the people that have been sailing their mixed bag are starting to upgrade, and they're picking boats based on the others that are around, and some groups are forming. First it was the NACRA 5.8s, then NACRA 6.0s. Hobie-20s and Inter-20s, A-Cats, and Taipans. And people are having fun racing against their counterparts as well as within the whole context of Portsmouth. The increase in numbers of sailors in our Fleet is helping out other regattas in the area, as people are starting to venture out. It's a slow process, but I believe it is happening.

Don't get me wrong - I believe One Design and Formula is a great thing. And it will be great to see it thrive again with strong cat classes.

We're at a time with our sport (and I mean catsailing in general, not just racing, even though I know that definition is not universal), where we need to bring fresh blood in. I believe we need to concentrate on that. Once the numbers come up, and a critical mass is there, the one design and formula scenes will have a better chance to develop and exist and keep support. I believe the open Portsmouth racing is the best way to just get people out. If the racing in the area is handicap, and people feel that racing in handicap is so bad they'd rather sit on the beach and stew about it, well, go ahead and sit. You're not helping grow the scene and I'd rather have somebody who doesn't know port from starboard but is enthusiastic to race with.

Variations on the scoring theme as far as trophies in sub-classes are simply a tweak, and honestly I'm not sure if will change the draw to an event that much. I don't think I'll say "it's not worth going to that race because there's only trophies for open spin and non-spin" - I'm more interested in whether the whole thing looks like fun. If you're going to base your attendance on what trophies you can take home, then see my previous comment about who I'd rather see on the water.

What will bring new people to the sport is relentless bringing of the word to the unconverted. In our area, I believe a crappy job is done in this area. I think one of the key reasons our Fleet has grown has been due to our getting the word out to non-catsailors and non-racing catsailors. We've backed off a little because we're at the limits of our land space, but you can never back off - old members leave or become inactive for whatever reason, and you drive yourself crazy trying to figure out a way to make them come back, or you can go out and find new blood. New blood is the best option every time. An example of us not getting the word out - in Galesville, where we race on every Tuesday night from early May through October when we switch to Sundays, I just got contacted by an active keelboater from the Wednesday night series, saying after all the years he's raced in Galesville he had no idea that there was a cat club. He was surprised to find out we've been there for 12 years. And we're sponsored by the same bar. We're not getting the word out. Great events like the C-100 happen and nobody outside the cat-sailors even know it happened. We're not getting the word out.

If this all sounds like work, well it is. But the benefits include having the critical mass of sailors to support just about any kind of racing to fill all niches. Forming the niches before the critical mass has been achieved is a recipe for failure in my book.

Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.