John

what do you define as "not solely"...
That is EXACTLY the system Area Winners, Class champions and invitations (to the top sailors who compete at nationals).

The trend of multihull sailors supporting this championship was down for years... With about 50 teams and just over half the Areas participating... I judge it as a failure. YMMV of course.

The core issue is Why do we want an elite regatta like this anyway?

We like the rest of the US Sailing OD classes have our NA's and Nationals. They are open!

US Sailing already runs a champion of champions invitation only regatta where multihull class NA winners can compete.

And.... We HAVE an elite multihull championship already... it is called the Olympics.... runs every 4 years. Better then that... The US slot is an OPEN competition... show up and win the selection events and you represent the US. No requirements to win anything or be selected by a committee to compete.

So Why do we need an elite by invitation only event that has all of these competition strings attached to pretend that we are sorting the best US multihull sailors? Moreover, why should we take the efforts of a large number of volunteers and the endowment and focus it on this small "not solely elite" group of the multihull racing community sailing boats that the builders want to market? (of course if as you suggest and you ask the people who have raced the event in the past... they will say they loved it.. (but they would not be sloop or singlehanded sailors) (who would not enjoy the sponsorship and endowment money for their use!)

I judged that the US Sailing championship should be OPEN and not Elite... just like the other championships in the country.

Bottom line... the premise that the old format attracted sailors to the organization was failing. The elite regatta format appeals to a select few and did not serve the entire sailing community (see the trends). ... Sailors felt like it was extortion to go to a local regatta run by the same volunteers that ran last weeks regatta. They voted with their feet.

There are fundamental problems with your basic and historical premise. Moreover, I don't believe that you can come up with a spreadsheet for the environment we now live in, much less convince a builder to put marketing money in the game based on your spreadsheet. (Yes times change... you do need a proof of concept. The notion that volunteers were loosing control is complete crap! There were votes by lots of people. No money was left on the table in the year that I served on the C committee.


So, where we are now is that the MHC supported the Championship Committee implementing the following principles.
Move the event around the country.
Serve the needs of all the mulithull sailors (sloop classes. spinnaker Classes and Singlehanders)
Use the endowment money to sponsor race clinics for all interested sailors in an effort to grow interest and skills in cat racing.

The old system had failed because of the business model and lack of rank and file support for qualifiers. The current system could fail if one design classes don't support their turn at the championship within their championship program.