This announcement should come as neither a surprise nor disappointment to any cat sailor who values the future of the championship as a continued benefit of US Sailing.

As cat sailors, you are represented by the Multihull Racing Committee (formerly the Multihull Council). As you may recall, the Council held an open survey last year on the future of this event (post-provided boats). While most items resulted in statistical ties, two jumped off the page as priorities:

(1) Rotate through our primary disciplines (Singlehanded Unirig, Doublehanded Sloop, Doublehanded Spinnaker)
(2) Move the event around the country more than in the past.

The Council formally voted to recommended these items to the Alter committee, who in turn voted to accept and adopt this recommendation.

So, we are working with US Sailing to deliver exactly what our sailors want.

Bert helped secure Sausalito as the site, and Laura has worked closely with HCA and HCC to select the Hobie 16 as the boat (as you know, the event has been held on DH Spins every year since 2005).

I would personally like to thank Bert, Laura, and the members of both committees over the past year for helping us move this forward. In addition, Jack, Liz, Shannon and others have been great resources on the US Sailing side of the equation. As for the America's Cup side, Liz has taken a lead to help us integrate, and I've had some discussions with John Craig (US Sailing board member and AC PRO), and he is very happy to work with us. More details will follow as this is finalized.

My suggestion would be to immediately join US Sailing, start to save some pennies and vacation time, and get a Hobie 16 ready to race, so you don't miss out on what will likely be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The Alter committee is already working hard to plan for 2014 and beyond, as it is a shared goal to have a long-term plan in place and announced so that we can get back to being able to plan on attending this event several years out.

Please join me in thanking all of these folks. None of this work is easy, and we know that no decisions will please everyone. But, we're all volunteers, who truly try to balance the desires of a wide variety of members, and get paid only by your appreciation of our service.

Hope this helps.

Mike