Nicely framed Jake.
Here is the money question.... Do you think the A class will be changing their rules in the future?.... and are you willing to buy a current design based on your tea leave reading?
I might add. Mischa Hermschck is on the record as stating the rules will have to change in a year or so...
The facts are that floaters are not racing flyers... except on the paper score sheet.
Personally, I think there is no turning back and the a-cat will be a genuine foiling class in the very near future. The foiling restrictions in rule 8 go away and the sea-huggers will go the way of the woodie a-cats. They'll hang around for a while, people that enjoy sailing them will continue to do so for a while until the lack of critical mass is quickly reduced to the point that there are just a handful of folks hanging in there old-school (2-3 years). Other folks will start hacking at their current a-cats as their budgets allow and we get a third crappy portsmouth rating for another type of a cat. The sailors have really already voted with the votes that really count...just look at how many new foilers are out there already that work within all the complications that is rule 8.
Whether or not class numbers go up or down is anybodies guess - but I would wager that after an initial period of decline that the class numbers will grow until they realign with the overall attendance trend of the sailing sport whatever that might be at the time.
As far as my own boat preference, I really enjoyed sailing an a-cat when I did but I'm not in the market for another single hander. If I was, I would need to probably find a way to fund $15,000 to $25,000 to restart life as a foiling a-cater and that would probably only get me something that I would need to start cutting on. I could do it, but I'm not sure it's worth that much to me when I find nearly as much enjoyment club racing my 1983 J22...but that's just me influenced by having the pleasure of sailing with some really great people as crew.
