The Hobie versus Nacra thing comes about because of disagreements between ourselves at the fleet and national class level. If the builder can convince a fleet or class to exclusively support their boats and conduct regattas exclusively for their boats, they have a marketing edge and they use their leverage!… AND, they always market their boats as winners when they win. I have no problem with this and I think you should brand the boats in this way at F18 events. If this were a junior regatta… you would brand the kids by age. If its an international event… you brand by country. It’s information that people want to know in context of the event… You should provide them information when it drives up interest. If you are looking at the results from the Netherlands, you won’t know the sailors but you would be interested in the boat types and if any other nations competed. If you are sending your results to the local paper… they want to know the town and state of the competitor. (cause their readers don’t know the sailors or boats but they like to know that competitors came from all over the region to their community) Bottom line.. collect the information and generate your results for the types of readers you are trying to reach.

The upset is generated when your fleet wishes to drink the Kool aid and take the cash from the builder because you think this is in your club’s best interest. I disagree with this program choice because this action causes the split in the sailing community since one group will exclude another group. Obviously cat sailing groups around the country have disagreed on this issue and we remain divided on this point and the ultimate impact. This is the issue to be addressed… the boat branding is just a red herring.

In the adult world… the J35 owners are not trashing the Benetau 35.6 owners… they show up and race in class when they get 10 or so and race on PHRF when they have fewer numbers. What is our problem with branding boats by builder and acting like adults? (Now a labeling system for branding would be nice… eg HF18 or NF18 or BF18 or CF18)