Now I know how it feels to be hijacked. Its not a bad thing since the conversation turned in an interesting direction. Of course we are really re-hashing old issues on this (hijacked) thread direction.

Personally, I suffered from bad timing in my choice; got into the Hobie 20 just as the class was dropping off in my area. I got a ride on a couple of H20s and an I20 and was hooked (coming off a Hobie 16). The area entrepeneur was promoting the H20 heavily until he started selling Inter 20s for a living; of course his focus changed. Anyway, I was able to buy a competitive H20 for less than half the price of a new I20. Problem was that I quickly had fewer and fewer skippers with which to race. Unfortunately, in my are the same thing is now happening to I20 sailors.

As Mark said, it seems to be a zero sum game to this point, in that the drop in H20 and I20 sailors is offset by a growth in A cat sailors. In the end, everyone will do what they think works best for themselves. Classes will rise and classes will decline. We probably should look harder at the more fundamental issues of beach access and collective homes for our boats where we can store mast up and have sailing programs for newbies and youth. Those two items may be the biggest causes of decline (and reasons for new growth).

Did I just hijack my own thread??

David
H20 781