Matt and Mark,

You guys make some good points. However, economy of supply and demand says that if enough sailors show up to an event to support it, it survives. The question here is, however, if we concentrate those sailors and limit the events to create larger fleets, would it encourage more participation. Personally, I don't think so. I know when I was starting, I was looking for events nearby - not big events far away.

That being said, Matt makes a good point about communication and sailors working together to decide where they are going to attend. In this area, we've done that with email and it's worked out very well. We know where the big fleets are going to be and they seem to build upon themselves. Occasionally we manage to draw out the mothballed F18 just because we are going to have a large fleet at a local regatta. To further that tool, we have setup a forum on the new NAF18 website (just released) that is for polls and discussion relating to regatta attendence. This site has been active for a day so there's not a whole lot of discussion going on. Check it out at http://www.naf18.com


Jake Kohl