Jamie,
I am so glad to hear that you took Joey to the Orange Bowl -- and for the second year! What a great experience that has to be for him.

Other cat sailor friends of ours have children who are in the monohull racing circuits, starting with Optis and then moving up through the other levels. Probably there are a number of other cat kids in the Orange Bowl that we are not even aware of.

We ARE aware of Dan and Gloria Lawrence, who were Nacra 6.0 sailors in our CABB fleet -- in fact Dan was fleet commodore. But, when their two boys got to sailing age, they gave up their own sailing and started their kids in the monohull system.

Both boys had been exposed to sailing catamarans since they were babies, but they went through the optis and are now going through the various Laser levels.

In the recent Orange Bowl Luke Lawrence finished 8th in the Full-rig Laser fleet of 38 boats, and his younger brother Eric finished 2nd in the Laser Radial fleet of 27 boats.

Apparently, they are not bored racing monohulls.

As I keep trying to convince people, it is not about the kind of boat -- for kids it is about both socializing and competing with a whole bunch of peers and having role models in your age range. And the big fleets are very exciting, regardless of how fast or slow the boats.

Again, I just don't get why so many people think kids have to be on catamarans. Doesn't make any sense to me. If I were a teenager right now, I would MUCH rather be racing a Laser Radial and trying to get as good as Paige Railey.