As one who is looking to get into cat sailing, and possibly racing, this makes for an enlightening read. While there is much camaraderie demonstrated on this forum, I find it troubling to read this and hear that there is some lacking in sportsmanship when racing. Competitiveness is great, but tossing your moral compass overboard simply to finish higher completely devalues any result you achieve.
This whole discussion makes me wonder whether my wife and I will ever end up doing any racing at all. If events like those described here are at all regular, I suspect we'll opt for just romping around on our own and not worrying about it.
Stuart,
I believe you are making the wrong assumptions. In my experience racing catamarans, the sailors are pretty good at observing the major right of way rules and I find the attitude on the race course is way more tolerant and "professional" than you'll find elsewhere. I've gotten more than one comment from yacht club race committees about how much easier it is to run an event for multihull sailors and the high level of sportmanship that is typically displayed.
What I think has been referred to above are petty protests against race committees and redress requests that can tend to sour an event.
The better the fleet, the less possibility for protests as the sailors are more knowledgeable and experienced and just avoid situations that could lead to a rules infraction.
Hope this encourages you to join the multihull racing ranks, it's some of the best racing you can do.
Bob Hodges
