I noticed somewhere here that Hobie is going to ban other boats from thier races... Did anyone wonder why?
No... they told us... the IHCA told the National Sailing Authorities (NAHCA) that Hobie meant Hobie and to maintain their sanction the local fleets could not run mixed events and call it hobie. Many fleets said.. OK ... out they go... Many other fleets so... stuff it, we don't care and we will do what we want.
Why? ... They said... that they saw no benefits from running mixed class regattas AND they worried that they would loose sailors and sales to other fleets. Its buisness and why should they do something that could hurt buisness.
I repeatedly challenge them on this premise... I think they have strong racing classes, with people who go racing a lot and if you fit the boat's profile... its a strong reason to race in a Hobie class. I bet you can't find any Hobie racer who says... I am stuck on my Hobie because it's the only racing game in town... Rather... I find people who say... I am stuck on my Hobie because I love it... and it does exactly what I want. (In fact... the hobie forum has a thread about... Why exactly are we excluding the F18's from our events? We ought to change this...)
I have absolutly *no* problem with any single make regatta. IMHO it is entirely up to the organizing authority as to who entries are open to. Point blank - every association will do what (they think) is best for them first. For Hobiecat that means organizing regattas for their boats, not their competitors. To blame any manufacturer for looking out for itself is naive (sp?).
To get true "open" regattas, the model of racing needs to change to non-aligned club racing. For most clubs, what is best for them is participation (in all forms) which might include a selection of invited classes along with open fleets.
The aim at the end is to have week to week club based sailing with specific class associations organizing a small number of headline regattas such as state/regional and national titles.
What this means is the workload of organization is spread over a much larger pool of organizors leaving the class associations to concentrate their efforts on fewer top shelf regattas.
My $0.02 worth anyway.
Tiger Mike
