Folks you are confusing two issues.

How to get people into cat sailing is very different from how to get them into cat racing. (of course it’s a chicken and egg proposition but you need to focus on the two separately)

Cat sailing is a recreational activity or past time that falls under the umbrella called boating. Access to this unique form of recreational boating is through resorts and the local hobie dealer selling boats like Hobie Wave. Escape, and Bravo line of boats. What these folks want are good cheap reliable boats that don’t need much maintenance and are turn key so that you are recreating quickly. You can go cat sailing by yourself and back in the hey day… many of these boaters populated the public beaches…mostly with their family and friends. Why did they stop sailing?… where did they go? … probably has many answers but it’s likely that some moved up to monohulls or the F boat trimarans…. Others just got tired of the activity and moved on to a new challenge when the boat got old or kids limited their ability to get on the water.

What’s important to realize here is that NO ORGANIZATION is needed or really wanted by these folks. They are just like the huge number of recreational sailors with their boats in a marina… few belong to any local organization. If they want anything organized… it’s centered around a social outing… So,… groups like Singles on Sailboats, or the Catalina owners group arrange a cruise to X for the weekend and now their fun solo activity is also social and more fun. In the catamaran world… a few places come to mind where these sailors congregate. Sandy Hook Catamaran Club has over a hundred boats on the beach and the vast majority are pleasure sailors…. The club provides a beach parking spot and a social group of sailors if they want it. A club near Chicago with cheap beach space parking that apparently never turns over and most of the sailors come down to recreationally sail a few times a year…. If the price went up… or they had to move their boats once a year (yacht clubs frequently insist that the boat move out of the club once a year so that they weed out those owners who don’t want to participate in the club activities) The facility might disappear. On the Chesapeake… Hobie cat’s are scattered on small bits of private property, or in commercial marina’s…. Cat Sailing is an individual pastime that you share with family and a few friends.

So, the question is…. WHO should be marketing and enrolling people in this activity? What should they be doing? Who is their target?
Seems to me… this is the boat dealers responsibility or perhaps US Sailing’s responsibility. All of these answers are a bit fuzzy to me. I personally don’t want to build or support a social club.

I can’t think of any leaders in the US catamaran sailing scene who take on this job of running a catamaran social club? Anyone have any nominations… Perhaps the Learn to sail guys with the Hobie 101 program in Oregon??? Or Jeff Rabidaux.??? Who is trying to revive a social hobie fleet in the midwest. Maybe the Sandy Hook guys. Those people could speak up and tell us what’s needed to make this kind of thing happen and what it takes to draw in social catamaran sailors into a club OR and how do they help the local dealer sell boats. In my experience… the racing sailors are not interested in this initiative and so counting on us to pull this off will be a waiting for Godot scene


Cat Racing is a sport!
Those of us who are organizing and running clubs are interested in creating an organization that is fun to be in and is focused on excellence in cat racing. Many of the clubs include this in the name… CRAC… CRAM.... OCRA. …. Those R’s stand for racing!
So… when you ask the question… how do you get more people involved into this activity…. The answers will be very different. If you don’t have a group of people racing…. You have a pretty lame race.

Who should be marketing this activity?
The answer is VERY CLEAR… it should be and is marketed by the Racing catamaran clubs, the Racing Class Association, and the builders and dealers of racing boats. How well we do this is of course open to debate.

What should we be doing?
Again the answers are easy… check out the thread “what makes a great regatta?”
The answers, are run great regattas with a great venue, great race committee, great competition, and less important are the social activities and food. Truly great events manage all of the above.
Long term growth and health are addressed continually by classes. US Sailing organizes a yearly meeting (One design Class Association symposium) where all of the classes discuss ideas on how to deliver quality racing that meets the needs of their members. Check out my reports on the Annapolis One design forum and attend the one in your area when it comes around. For a recent success story check out the growth of the A class…. How many people would have expected that an expensive single handed boat would be the fastest growing class in the USA?

Who should you market to?

This gets to be interesting…. Because it frequently looks like AND IS a zero sum game.
You rob from one class in order to build your own favorite class.
Hell.. Hobie threw out all of the open boats because they decided that the sailors were looking at the newer non hobie boats… and choosing those boats and not the Hobie’s…. No net growth… just a loss on their side of the ledger… in their mind.
Sailing clubs are also very protective of their existing classes….Any new class will cut into the participation in an existing class… So… no new classes!
Nevertheless… some classes grow (A cats) and some die off (Nacra 6.0’s). mind you these boats have second lives with the recreational sailors.

Catamaran clubs look at all of the rail meet on the mono’s and say… Damn…. Some of those boys ought to be on a racing beach cat…. So… we are starting to do the big monohull races… Annapolis to St Michaels and three or 4 others on the bay, the three Distance races in California…. The Miami to Key Largo race… Around Newport race?
The idea is that if you pass them to weather on the first lap and to leeward the second time… they will get the idea that fast is fun. We need better ideas on how to introduce those guys to the performance catamaran.

What else can you do?

Simply STEAL THEIR KIDS HEARTS!
CRAC, Fleet 54 and Hobie Div 11 along with the Miles River Yacht Club are running a junior Hobie 16 regatta this summer. The Div 11 junior sailors get to go race at a top tier yacht club with pool, great facilities (and a Tiki bar for their parents). What’s new and exciting is that we are also LOANING boats to the CBYRA 420 and Laser racing junior sailors for the weekend regatta. We have US Sailing insurance for the borrowed boats and the idea is to introduce the SPORT of CAT RACING to RACING JR SAILORS.

So, this is what CRAC is about…. What’s your clubs initiative?

See Tom's post about how Fleet 204 is going about it. They try the low key racing approach with lots of kids on the water for weeknight sailing.

West River Catamaran Racing Assn on the chesapeake uses the single 3-4 mile tuesday night race to get people going rather then lots of intense mark roundings on the weekends.

What else do people do? What's your focus?