Since nobody from the Southwest U.S. has chimed in yet, I just thought I would add to Mark's thread that probably the Hobie edict did not affect some of those areas.

Down in Arizona they seem to have gotten it figured out a long time ago. They have Hobie Fleet 66 in Phoenix and Hobie Fleet 514 in Tucson and they have Multihull Fleet 42 in the Phoenix area, which organized in 1980 and is open to all cats.

The Hobie fleets do some events on their own, and Fleet 42 does some events on its own, but they also all do a lot of events together.

I don't know what the Hobie fleets there are like now, but when we were in that area back in the early '90's, the Phoenix and Tucson fleets were among the (if not THE) biggest in the country.

Anyway, those three fleets seem to have a really good relationship which allows the Hobie fleets to be exclusionary as far as their own fleets but there is an optional home for the non-Hobies -- and everybody gets along together and plays together and do charity events together, etc.

They all tend to go to the same lakes, and they all do their major regattas down in Mexico on the Sea of Cortez.

I guess when you are sailors living in the desert, you tend to flock together no matter what you sail -- like all sorts of animals ending up at the same watering holes, and sharing.