John-

It was good to see you in Portland. Let me add my two cents.

First, something had to be done. The governance of US Sailing had become disfunctional, with a 52 person board. It makes it kinda hard to have a productive conversation. Something had to be done and this is a good if not perfect solution. And they did listen to our concerns.

Second, the new board will be elected for the good of the sport, rather than to vote just for their constituency's narrow interest. This is good for multihull sailing since we are relatively underrepresented in the current structure.

And Direct Elections will probably also help multihullers because we all communicate through this site. In other words we have a much more effective get-out-the-vote mechanism than almost any other group in sailing.

So net-net, this is a good thing for multihullers IMHO.

Hunt Stookey
18HT USA-14