Hi Steve

Sorry to hear that your beach washed away... Haven't heard what the status is of my beach after the huricanne.

I think Caleb points to the only succesful strategy here.
They combined their local racing fleet with their community sailing center and taught basic cat sailing and some racing fundamentals. They offered a location (which centralized their activity) where people would go to find small boat sailing programs, Advertised a program that people wanted, (learn to sail a cat or race a cat). The result was new sailors and perhaps racers in the area.

Our existing group of trailer sailors has to bite the bullet and develop a central catamaran sailing club (s) (a fixed location where people can find you) which offers mast up storage. (In the age of condo's and townhouses... I don't know of many 20 to 30 somethings that can put a boat in the back yard) With a critical mass of racers on site// then you can develop a racing program. This will probalby mean giving up on some of the travel regattas that we now support. Once you have a weekly or twice monthly racing program with facilities and mast up storage availble (no matter what the cost) now you can market catracing to new racers and sailors who might want try racing.

This is a program that your local dealer(s) can help market and down the road we can market at sail festivals and similar events.

I just don't see new sailors getting into racing when faced with the lack of beach access in our areas, finding our racing group activities, finding a storage site for their boat, raising the mast, and figuring out the racing game without C fleets to support them.

The complaint of course is the cost of joining a club. You noted that they were "pricey in your area" Two clubs in the Annapolis area cost between 800 and 1500 per year. I don't think this is out of line for what we get. Hopefully we can grow Podickery into a viable racing club (like Galesville and the WRSCA in the future. Good luck with your efforts.

Mark