I would like to suggest a plan of advertising our sport that seemed to work really well for a couple of us here in New England. We contacted a collegiate regatta out of Newport and got permission to 'solicite' some of the spectators and sailors not in that rotation to go for a 'ride'. In a couple hours, we gave 10-15 minute rides to interested and capable sailors who were excited about the sport of catamaran racing. Many of these avid sailors had never been on a Cat and only seen pictures of I20's and N6.0's in acticles about the W1000. (this was a couple years ago). There is no starker comparison to the speed they experienced than getting back on a 420 or FJ dingy after doing 15 knots double trapping and flying a hull accross the harbor. We had simple flyers about our local fleet and racing schedule that year. In the end we gained publicity, interest, and even a couple sailors that summer. It was well worth the effort, and certainly something I would recommend doing again in the future!
Chris Titcomb
www.acceleratedchaos.com I did this with one very hot sailor in the UK, took him out on my Hurricane 5.9 in a good F5 - 6 and we were racing HARD with some other boats - It really blew his mind that we were doing such high speeds with boats only a few feet apart. Remember a few of his comments :
"Looked like a close port/stbd call and Simon just flew a hull over the transom of the other boat !"
"never been so fast"
"never had to think so fast"
"Never had to plan so far ahead because of the speed"
"Never had to work so hard to stay on the side of a boat"
"and simon tells me I am about 3 stone over weight for the boat, how do you get down to the weight and geep the strength - he was an FD Crew !"
"never slowed down so fast when we slammed a wave"
"I'm knackered, the crew does not get a rest at all"
"I suggested he had a helm, but he said so thanks, 2 bits of string are enough at these speeds"
He did not buy a boat, but it soon got around the fleets that there is a lot more to these boats with 2 hulls than meets the eye.
