This is in response to Matt Miller

I hope this change was a considered move and not an act of desperation. I personally do not see anything good coming out of this, for anybody.

I am most annoyed because it may mess the only working cat racing organization we have on the Texas Gulf Coast. The local Fleets are operating at a skeleton level. We are still working well at a division level, coordinate Regattas, share equipment and manpower, and buy insurance. If you mess that up, I am going to be really annoyed.

It doesn't help matters that the decision was made at an AGM which was held at a time and place that doesn't coincide with the historical time and place AND that it appears that the meeting was by invitation only since it was not publicized in the NAHCA magazine or other public forum. The run of the mill X-boat sailor that doesn't follow the Catsailor forum will get a nasty shock when they either read a NOR (assuming that the hosting fleet spells it out in the limited space available). Or worse when they show up for registration and discover that A)they can't register because they didn't sail that venue the previous year or B)if they sailed the previous year, that they would be required to buy an ANNUAL membership to an organization that does not welcome them and will ban future membership.

As far as Hobie letting other boats in 10 years ago, that was a done deal at a local level before NAHCA ever noticed. The issue was manpower. There were not enough involved people to run 2 competing organizations, so we merged. That gave us a few more good years.

The Hobie organization may look good on paper but, I am sure reality doesn't match. For example, the only Hobie owning member of the Houston Hullraisers/MSA/Hobie Fleet 8 Board, is my wife and she is the most angry about this change. (However she owns a Wave which technically isn't part of NAHCA) The organizations are mostly run by only a handful people, 1 or 2 in each city, and they are getting tired.

As far what happens next - we could ignore it, work around it or tell NAHCA to ... (maybe even provide a link on how we think they should ...) The worst thing for Hobie would be for the local organizations to ignore them, that would imply they do not matter. Which from a practical perspective, they don't. I haven't seen any support beyond some small to moderate giveaways for one of our three regattas in the last 10 years.


I really hope this was a well considered move because you have made enemies. My wife loaned her Wave out for dealer demo sails, we taught people to sail and even helped to sell a few for you. We will still teach people to sail on the Wave but I have a spare Tornado logo for the sail and we will just tell people the builder of our boat is a real ... and Escape makes a similar boat.


As for my vote on what to do next, I say reorganize as Prindle Fleet 2 under NAMSA. I still have about 5000 stickers for them and they had a really cool team Texas logo for the sail

Carl Bohannon (& Cyndi Bohannon)
Tornado US 782