The F16 was chosen for 2012 because the committee felt that the next Olympics would be held on a spinnaker boat, the Nacra F17 doesn't really exist yet, and the F18 Worlds on the other side of the continent would make boats unavailable. The date was selected to give the event its own weekend, and it was believed that since there are so few of these boats in the country, putting them close to the nationals in time and physical location would increase opportunities for chartering. None of these decisions came without plenty of discussion of the pros and cons of each.

Combining qualifiers with existing cat regattas has been tried, and has also failed (at least once at Roton Point for sure). By and large, people want to sail OD at the local regattas.

Finding certified officials is easier than you realize, many of them are within our ranks.

Personally, I prefer having qualifiers, and making them the only way to get to the finals, even if it's BYOB.

I have been beating the drum that we need to schedule these events at least three years out (we're trying, keep in mind that we are rebuilding from scratch this year).

I like the idea of using the same platform for the qualifiers and finals (if that's what was proposed by Jake above). This has also been discussed by me and Jack as a possibility for the future. Basically, if the 2014 event is to be held on Hobie Dragoons, the qualifiers would be held at existing regional regattas in 2013, and the Hobie Dragoon fleet would serve as the qualifier. Don't go to the qualifiers and/or don't bring a Hobie Dragoon, don't show up at the finals.

For this to work, we'd all need to get on board to support this. In the example above, all Hobie Dragoon sailors (skippers and crews) would need to be US Sailing members. While I used that boat as a non-threatening example, think it through if the finals were to be on a F18 or A Cat. Would people stay home from their local event just to avoid the membership requirement?

I see the loss of qualifiers as a major problem for US Sailing, as there are no other flag-bearing local cat regattas. I am working with Jack to see what we might be able to do, several ideas have been floated, and this will be a project for the winter. Training and rules clinics are on the top of the list. Send suggestions if you have them.

Mike