To be clear, I think US Sailing has value to anyone who sails. I've been neck deep in volunteering for the organization for 15 years and I'm not done. I don't think they do everything right. I've been at odds with the last few years of moving away from a volunteer organization, but my membership is current and so is my race officer certification.

Neither the Alter Cup nor the Olympic programs get any money from dues - if you don't want to support the elite end of the sport, you can still be a member with a clear conscience.

I have been and will continue to be a multihull sailor first, and I always saw the Alter Cup as the most visible evidence to other adult multihull sailors of what US Sailing is about, at least at a level that connects more locally for most of us. I've been torn as the event that brings all classes, fleets and associations together has changed, incrementally, into something else. I've wondered, as others do, if it would serve the multihull community better to have the Alter Cup out from under the US Sailing Championships. This does not equate (in my mind) to a condemnation of US Sailing as a whole.