Hi Darryl

I agree with you. FYI.
In the USA back in the day, the numbers were large enough so the cat sailors created their own regattas and paper clubs and largely promoted one design sailing outside of the traditional sailing community. (And the Civil War among us started with respect to WHICH one design) Now the numbers are small and cat sailors are slowly reorganizing their one design clubs and joining yacht clubs and other traditional sailing organizations. Sometimes they join as generic cat sailor... other times they join as a one design fleet.

On the Chesapeake Bay, Cat sailors belong to several geograpically different open cat clubs. We race in a mix of Big Boat Distance Races managed by several yacht clubs under the CBYRA umbrella, We race in small boat regattas hosted by other yacht clubs managed by a different wing of the CBYRA and we host our own events. One of the traditional one design dinghy yacht clubs accepted a small fleet of A class THIS YEAR. For the majority of these events... we are Beach Cats to the host clubs... by and large we split out one design groups on our own.

What happened to our Civil War? .... The passions don't die... it still simmers along and bubbles up with respect to Hobie Policies and this one design dogmatic debate ....

Bottom line... IMO, we are slowly getting to where you are! We do not have a consensus yet as to the best way to revive the sport... Will one design principles save us??? Will a model that works for the rest of the world save us???
100 + emails and counting point to just how contentious the debate is.

Take Care
Mark