Mr. Miller,

I was looking at it from the "all fun for sailors" side, not the profit making side. I did express admiration for the Hobie marketing approach, and trust me, our local Hobie dealer has put a lot more food on the table with the yaks and recently, the sups, but there is not a Hobie Cat product that can compete with his stable of NACRAS.

When I was in France I saw some of the Euro boats. One guy in Entebbe was bragging about the one piece spinnaker halyard and tack system on one of their rentals. Randy had that on his NACRA 6.0 NA a couple years or more earlier, and if I remember correctly, on low batteries, the guy even said the design was Smyth's.

In our region of the USA, youth, yacht club (opti, 420, Laser etc) sailors are converting to the F 16 by high school. Let's consider the impact which the AC will have through 2013. The youth sailors coming out of yacht club sailing programs will be attracted to the high performance discipline and many of them already have Olympic lights on their Christmas tree.