I'm late to this discussion, thanks to Chris Wessels for calling in a head's up. I recently moved to Knoxville from Louisiana after a 23-year career as a military officer. I understand the importance of organization and structure, more on that shortly. Upon arrival here, the Hobie Class Association asked me to be the Division 9 Chairman (GA, SC, NC, East TN, Va Beach, VA). Being a new guy in this region, it’s taken a while to see how EMSA works and to understand the issues we have here. I’ve been hesitant to start telling the veterans here what’s wrong with cat sailing, but I think this discussion is a good place for me to jump in. You guys have made some excellent points in these posts, and I'd like to weigh-in with my observations and suggestions.

First, there is no shortage of regattas in our region - quite the opposite. It’s great that so many people want to host regattas, but as some of you have noted, the calendar is saturated. The folks who continue to race cats have so many choices that the population of active cat racers is spread too thin. Jake does an excellent job of putting events on the schedule. Currently there are 30 of them. They are divided into 10 EMSA events and 20 others "of interest". However, when a bunch of people jump on the yahoo group and start trying to promote a bunch of the "of interest" regattas, the original EMSA events begin to lose their significance. It makes you wonder, “What’s the significance of an EMSA event?” “Why should there be a difference?” Without any structure, organization, or leadership, it’s just a free for all.

That brings up my second point: lack of leadership. I’m not slamming anyone, especially Jake, it appears that he’s the only one putting forth any significant effort at the macro level. Not only does he work hard compiling and publishing a schedule, but he also moderates the CatamaranCrazy yahoo group which is the primary means for communication among cat sailors in our region. But beyond that, we need a decision making body that can influence which regattas get emphasized and perhaps which classes show up where and how many classes show up at a given regatta. Much easier said than done. For starters, there would be no way to make this group of Spranos’ decisions binding on anyone. If ABC Yacht Club wanted to invite cats or a certain class to their event, there’s nothing that says the club can’t do so and nothing that says sailors can’t take them up on their invitation. My impression is that cat sailing in our region, not necessarily just EMSA, has fallen under the spell of a culture that shuns rules and organization. Most of these folks it seems just want to be a free spirits and do as they please, or do things the way they’ve been doing them. Well, we see where that has led. There has to be some structure and organization.

So, how best to organize? As best I can tell, EMSA has been working things based on events. Putting events on Jake’s calendar has driven everything. With an absence of leadership and organization, that was the best thing he could do for us. However, a better way to organize would be by classes. Well before the season starts, like in November, we need to have delegates from the Hobie Class, the Isotopes, A-Cats, the F18s and F16s (are there any other classes of significance around here?) physically meet somewhere in a central location and discuss the most efficient way to focus classes on existing regattas. We won’t be able to focus on all of them, and we can focus multiple classes on the same regattas. This may be an odd concept, but the classes need the mutual support of one another to keep our regattas afloat. We’ll also need to consider deconfliction on the calendar and even avoid back-to-back weekends if possible. We’ll need to impress upon the yacht clubs the necessity for early scheduling, lest they be left out in the cold. Perhaps Spring Fever should reconsider Easter weekend. There will be some tough decisions made. Not every club’s regatta will be emphasized and their attendance will suffer. But if we don’t do anything, we’ll continue to see the decline that led to the demise of Spring Fever.

During my short tenure in Division 9, I’ve focused on the Hobie classes because 1) it’s my responsibility, and 2) I didn’t think I’d earn anyone’s support if I were perceived as the new guy trying to tell the establishment how to organize their regattas. But I’ll tell you what seems to be working with rejuvenating the Hobie classes. I’ve taken the approach of trying to designate just a few regattas, three this year, as HCANA sanctioned points regattas. The “Points Regatta” designation is critical because if we are to get Hobie sailors to travel to our regattas from other regions, they need to know that it fits the one-design Hobie standard – basically, a quality control endorsement ensuring that one-design Hobie classes have their own starts. I didn’t want to pursue this at every EMSA event or every “of interest” event because I was concerned about the dangers of schedule saturation. My vision is for Hobie sailors to focus on a few events so they’ll be well attended and competitive, and hence more fun, which will keep people coming back. It’s great for the competitors and great for the clubs hosting us at their regattas. And we aren’t taking a Hobie-only approach to these regattas. A lot of people are still uptight over the “edict” years ago, but things have loosened up since then.

One of the obstacles that I’ve come across is reluctance to change – some organizers either want to handicap the Hobie classes so they can accommodate singlehanders or Hobies with non-legal sails, or they want us to start on the line with a bunch of other boats but score us separately. They’ve always done it that way. But both situations are in violation of Hobie class rules, and more importantly, they have the effect of degrading the quality of racing for the majority of Hobie sailors to accommodate a few who could be in compliance with some effort – and money, no one said this sport was cheap. But the reluctance to change has influenced which events will be included in our Hobie Division 9 schedule. The three events that are on our schedule have agreed to accommodate our class rules and will get a strong turnout of Hobies which will support their bottom lines. Spring Fever wouldn’t change their model to accommodate us, so it didn’t get put on the Hobie calendar and wasn’t emphasized in the Hobie world – not many Hobies signed up. The point is: if you are organizing a regatta, be open to change – embrace one-design classes and accommodate them, Hobie or otherwise, that want to come to your regattas. Try to improve the quality of racing, don’t just settle for the status quo or keep doing something just because you always have. There are a bunch of regattas out there and recruiting sailors is going to become a competitive proposition.

Let's make some changes and get our sport back on track! Let's start discussing whose going to represent the classes, consider an agenda, and start thinking about a late fall meeting.

Mark Van Doren
HCANA Division 9 Chairman