I think I disagree (sometimes disagree strongly) with the idea's proposed about promoting and growing the sport.

Naturally taking interested people along is excellent. But the idea's of malls and boat builder sponsor deals seem to me to be to improbably to work. Actually can anyone name a single boat builder that sponsors an activity. Beneteau, Catalina, Hobie (excluding their own events), etc ? Companies that sponsor are typcially big guys like banks (ING , ABN-AMRO, Banque Populair), housing agencies (Europe), ensurreance companies (Groupama) and multinationals like photofilm, lock or tool makers (Fuji-colour, Assa Abbloy, Scania). The list is endless, KingFisher, B&Q Castorama. Even large engineering firms like. Brunel Sunergy (whitbread) and Skilled engineering (18 foot skiffs).

Moreso, if we demand sponsorship deals from boatdealers we implicetely force them to raise prices of their products. So what we win on one side we loose on the other. This is not smart policy

Point one is, We are looking at the wrong companies for sponsor deals.

Another issue is that we think of ourselfs as enjoying a product that is too special and trying to market it to normal folk. First normal folk will never get into sailing. It is and will be to a larger extend an elitist sport. Only really suitable to a portion of the population. BUT, so too are high powered motorcycles. And still we have various very succesful motorcycle companies and faltering cat building companies. The best we can do is focus fully on our special nature and use that to descriminate ourselfs from all the other life style products efforts out there.

Than I think we are making a mistake by thinking we can win much by using mainstream promotion and advertising. We set ourselfs up for failure if we try to win the sexappeal angle from the wave surfers, the manliness angle from the motorcycles and the rebelious angle from the rockstars and underground scene. Sailing in general must work it own angle. Succes and recognition of greatness by endureance, mental stamina and knowing when to attack and duck while dancing with the twin grizzly bear called sea and weather. This sport is about honing your mentality and character as much as it is about getting a kick out of flying hull in 20 and at 20 knots.

Point : First look at what this sport really is, and what others aren't, and fully focus to that. You will not attract large portions of general folk but you'll win large portion of the people who were already so dispositioned and your imagine in general will be clearly recognisable and different from the others.


Also we just have to much bickering going on inside our seen. How many OD wave surf competions do we see, How many OD motorcycle races, how many OD iron man competitions (using the same bikes or kayaks) etc etc. In general we spend more time and effort to infighting than growing the sport together and YES the large cat companies are to blame disproportionally here. I mean how stupid is it to have a 3 boat nationals over a 30 boat combined nationals ? And yes one big builder choose to support this stupidity as recently as 2004. The anual fight over which boats get chosen to do the Worrell like races and Alter cup are more examples of it.

Lets face it guys paper, magazine and readers want to see companies slugging it out on the race course and see underdogs stuff up big guys with a home made contraption. We have however BANNED all that to favour the "exiting spectacle" wether mr and ms Brown win over mr and ms Blueberry. Also the public wants to hear about secret wapon number 1 and coutermeasure number 10. There is a reason why Open 60 ORMA and Open format vendee Globe and Volvo ocean races get big publicity and Hobie 16 worlds DON'T. It is called analyses of new technics, new design features and endless talk of their potential. We can all relate to things like that but not to the names of skippers who really 99% of the broader community has heard about. Also take the Race ! Were we supporting a particular boat because Grant Dalton was sailing it or the Bruno Peyron ! Now we supported particular baot because we were Americans (Playstatation) or non-Americans (Other boats) , because we supported the underdog (The Polish entre with Roman Paske) or because we were French. This sort of rivalry fills pages and catches the imagination. How Yves Parlier broke his carbon mast in the southern ocean, dragged it on board singlehandedly, jury rigged it and sailed to new zealand and repaired it building tools and an oven from cannibilized parts. How does that compare to make a call to Hobie Cat about them sending over a new certificed but outdated alu OD mast ?

Point : Stop the infighting and start working together (I know, hell freezes over first) and understand what earns respect and aw at a greater audience.


I can go on and on, but honestly I feel like wasting my precisious free time here. The answer and solutions have been available for many years now and examples in other sport are so too. However this was never the problem of the cat community.

Our problem is that we can get NAMSA of the ground, that we can't make the US Inter-18 and Tigers fit the F-18 rules that brought them about. Our problem is that we all yell that something should be done, but when the sleeves need to be pulled up and the elbows need to be greased, then suddenly nobody is around, we all grow instanious amnesia or can't accept that you can't an omelette with out breaking some eggs. Actually the way the NMBR rating system fares will be a great test case. Because if that fails than you can better give it up completely as then it will proven beyond a doubt that cat sailors are cheap, loud and lazy. They won't pay high prizes for top boats, They will yell, complain and give advice about everything but do nothing even when better policies, programs, systems and setups only needed a little support to make it.

I'm sure this is a big pill to swallow down but I think it needed to be said. I've been involved in the various area's of cat sailing over the last years, pretty much in continious fashion since 1999 and I've seen many many examples to support such a gloomy take on the situation.

I also see the solutions but for that we (I) need a committed and dedicated group of independent minded cat sailors that are willing to put in some effort. With such a group we can accurately target a few problem points and force solutions. So eventually the choice is a simple one. Do you want to be part of it or just remain as most of us were for over a decade.

Wouter