This is a worthy “project”, and to me illustrates, more than anything else, a cumulative vocalised realisation by more people than I have seen in the past, willing to focus on the fundamental problem in cat sailing over the last thirty years, that youth numbers sailing cats have been reducing at an alarming rate. To the point that at the moment it is very difficult to see any cat being sailed by anyone under the age of 40 in the foreseeable future. There have been many “reasons” enunciated as to why this has, is, and probably will continue to occur in the future, but none of these “reasons” have really helped to reverse this trend in a practical sense.
What we are seeing here is, at least a positive attempt to offer up a real practical alternative. There are a lot of varying “points of view” as to exactly how to proceed, but proceed you must. If any (or many) designs are developed from out of this discussion, (and not just further discussion), then there is the possibility of success. The first step is to design and build a cat, iron out any eccentricities, whether they are in the construction, the material supply, the building techniques, the cost, or the sailing characteristics, and then, when it is ready. And only when it is ready, present it to its potential market.
If ALL future difficulties that MAY arise with marketing, promotion and publicity, mass manufacture, export, and all the other myriad of problems that exist within the commercial world that are involved in operation a successful business were brought into consideration and applied at the planning stage of any actual embryonic project (like this one), then I don’t think any idea would ever “get off the ground”, it would all seem to be “just to hard”. So put simply, first steps first and don’t worry about that second step until the first is finished (or else you could stumble on the first)