Matt,
But is it possible that non-Hobies did not show up at Rochester last year because they had heard about the new Hobie policy and weren't sure whether they were welcome or not?

Maybe they were deterred from attending in 2004 by what Paul Ulibarri said in his initial decree regarding the phase-out plan to eliminate non-Hobies during 2004:

"Recognizing the far reaching and immediate negative results the implementation will no doubt have for your organization, we request that you develop a plan for meeting this directive and submit it to the IHCA Executive Director by December 31, 2003.

"The NAHCA phase out plan must include several IHCA imposed conditions, specifically;
"The plan must terminate by December 31, 2004.
"• Open Class boats permitted to participate under a phase out program will be restricted only to boats that have previously participated in a Hobie event prior to August 1, 2003 i.e Only Skipper and boat combinations that were raced in Hobie events prior to August 1, 2003 will be permitted to race in any 2004 Hobie event.
"• No new Open Class boats will be permitted to participate.
"• Skippers of all Open Class boats eligible and desiring to participate in this phase out program will be required to obtain IHCA or Regional Annual Membership for 2004."


This is me again talking: Based upon the above, I would guess that the phase-out plan effectively discouraged most non-Hobies from trying to participate in 2004.

So the four non-Hobies that did show up probably are the few people who did not get the message.

I only bring this up to point out that just because only four boats showed up does not mean that there are not a bunch more out there who would have liked to show up. So those statistics do not necessarily mean anything.