HEY! Mary's back! I hope the move is going well!

I don't think it's a bad attitude on the international and even national scale. These events draw enough interest that they do not live or die by attendance. The atmosphere at these events is about one design competition amongst a large number of boats and I think it's fair to boast a single manufacturer here. I don't think it would be detrimental to include an open class as long as it remained minor when compared to the overall event.

However, the arrogance in that letter makes me ill. On the local level (that these guys have apparently lost touch with) some of our regattas are so small that it's probably the worst thing you can do for our sport to exclude all but one manufacturer. By far NAHCA has the largest regatta structure in the U.S. and because of that they inherit an important position with a lot of leverage and responsibility over our sport in general. I really feel that in order to achieve success for our sport and for all manufacturers, especially Hobie, we need an open atmosphere for beach cat racing. Exclusion on the local level is not going to help build our sport because it will splinter the existing cells of activity. Heck, only 1/3 or our local "Hobie" fleet are actually Hobies (and that's a conservative figure)! What are we supposed to do? Exclude 2/3 of our fleet, including the commodore, from racing our events? Get real. If this policy was ever actually enforced on the local level, it would be the death of a very significant number of Hobie fleets.

I understand that they are trying to build brand loyalty with this policy. Hobie has an interesting position in the industry with the most boats but some of the most stale designs. This is not because they can't design a boat but because of the very nature of one design and their admirable firm adherence to it. They're trying to protect their market share, of what might appear on the outside to be inferior designs*, by leveraging their racing structure to shield their non-evolving one-designs. At the same time, Hobie Europe is building some highly competitive and evolving boats (F18 Tiger, Fox, etc.) to cover all the bases. The expense of this exclusion policy is only going to contribute further to the decline of cat sailing in the U.S. - even to the detriment of Hobie and to the formula racing they've recently prescribed. This whole thing really fired me up when it came out a little over a year ago but I have been relieved that most local folks have, and will continue to, ignore it.

*by "inferior designs" I mean only on a performance/racing level. Things like downhaul and mainsheet purchase, outhauls, jib systems, sail material etc. I do believe that Hobie builds very durable, dependable, high quality, family friendly boats but when compared to the like of Nacra, Inter, Marstrom, Taipan, etc. the boats are not as serious speed machines and have not been allowed to evolve into them.