Hi:
I think it is a little unfair to claim that NAHCA is the governing body of all multihull racing when in fact it is the North American Hobie Cat Association and is s'posedly the Hobie cat sailors' class association. Therefore it is reasonable for the organization to act in the interests of the Hobie classes. That's fine. Where I have trouble is when a national group tells local fleets who they can invite to regattas. I guess there was precedent in the class association years ago for doing this, but the cat's been out of the bag for a long time now and open class and other classes have been attending Hobie fleet organized regattas for a long time in our neck of the woods. A return to the days of old would be economically hard on the fleets in the mid-Atlantic area and a disservice to mid-Atlantic constituents. And here in the mid-Atlantic area, all classes, Hobie and non-Hobie have pulled together for the good of cat sailing. Why do otherwise?
With respect to ressurection of NAMSA, what is the purpose of forming another national organization? We already have one in US Sailing. They do a terrific job on handicap ratings and they're tied into the sailing mainstream. I don't wish to be in a separate organization that is outside of mainstream sailing so that we never get accepted into the mainstream. The only thing that an umbrella organization might do, in my mind, is to help with regional scheduling. Hobie Division 11 does a great job of that here. We, CRAC, are members of Division 11 and participate in developing the regional schedule. It works fine for the mid-Atlantic area. While you might argue that Division 11 is NAHCA, well who cares? It works great here. Would an additional organization, such as a regional NAMSA group, administer scheduling of regattas so that conflicts wouldn't exist within a reasonable travel area? Why couldn't the USSA areas organize this? I believe that Area C covers the same region as Division 11. Is that true in other parts of the country?
On the other hand, as far as our region is concerned, why fix what ain't broke? As I said before, we work happily with our friends in Division 11 to organize a yearly schedule of regattas that benefits the most sailors. And we all bring something to the party. Why reinvent it?
