Jake,
We have had several new people to the SEACATS family this year who I feel were intimidated by our boats and our racing histories. I have done a poor job the last several years encouraging these "greenhorns" to come back, but as things settle out in my life, Im hoping to have more time to do so. I have also been unhappy with the racing scene as it is, and hope that I/we can do something different.
The Outback Cup Regatta almost didnt happen this year not because of decline of racers(last year we had over 100 boats) but decline in Race Committee(3 seperate race courses is hard to pull off), and other volunteers. The save came when the suggestion came to either do a 1 day race, or some kind of distnce race. The final word from last nights meeting was to have a distance race on saturday, and some sort of bouy racing on sunday, but possibly the cats have 2 days of distance racing.

My proposal for the cats is to have 2 days of distance racing. saturday we could all sail to sandy beach~8 miles out, hit the beach and enjoy a cool one, and/or switch boats, skippers, crews, and "race" back.

Sunday we could either do the same or have our own fun race, be it a relay race, a funky bouy race, or just a fun distance race. WE ARE OPEN FOR SUGGESTIONS!

If some of you big dogs(Lennard/Pitt/Krantz could do a seminar on Friday, that would be cool too.

I think Carraba's cooking friday night, Outback steaks on saturday, plus beer and a band.

If any of you are willing to travel a little distance to join in, I will reserve you a spot in my RV at KSC so hotels are not an expense. If it happens to be a date that I can not attend, I will try to get the RV there for someone to use.

Dave, I like the idea of switching crew midway and racing back, skippers could draw crew names at the beach turn-around or crew could draw skippers.

a lot of A Cats now, might be a little harder to do some switching...But, I wouldnt mind trading

I'm working on the post card (5X8) and have a really economical printer (thanks to a referral from Tracie). I'm hoping to drum up a little sponsorship so we can maybe have two events a year in different locations to reach more people. So what do we call this thing?

a Fun Sail Program?
Greenhorn Regatta?
Newbie Noods?

Dave,

Do you have any contact information for those people? I'm starting a database so we can start figuring out what locations make sense.

Jake,

Call it a "Scavenger Hunt".

Entry fees are $50 worth of canned foods, new clothing, etc. to be given to the regatta's "adopted" charity.

Point-to-point race with scavenger items at each stop.

Sponsors donate items to be used on the scavenger hunt. Flags, coozies, floating keychains, water bottles, etc.

Special prizes for oldest boat, best decorated boat, best dressed crew, etc.

Open it up to canoes/kayaks, daysailers, multis, (depending on distance of the course) which would bring a lot of people who might be tempted to sail multis.

Maybe get the support of the local munipality or parks & recreation district.

Like I said earlier, the distance races appeal to me. Not as a replacement but an addition to the course. And if this enables attendees such as myself, access to more and closer regattas, because of less "overhead" in form of no real need for an official race committee, that's great.

I just want to be able to get together with other cat people and go sailing, and I feel many greenhorns feel the same way.

I think racing is just a logical, natural and desired stage after that.

I agree and think the only form of racing will be distance style. We can also do some handling drills and/or live coaching from chase boats if there is any interest in that.

Some distance style racing would be best, I agree.

Jake, just a quick thought about the inclusion of dealers like Nacra or Hobie that someone mentioned earlier:

As a semi-greenhorn who is returning to sailing, I find dealing with equipment and parts the number one frustrating problem. The sailing skills will come back gradually over time for me, I assume. It's not the sailing skills that's the culprit for greenhorns, IMO.

The puzzles with boats sources and sailing products and options are a pain.

Be nice if even just a parts supplier like Murrays would send a rep who sets up a table and explains parts options.

Just try getting the nearest Nacra dealer to the Carolinas on the phone.

If you are going to do a distance race, a reverse order start(Mugrace style) might be fun. Assigned times for starts and sign in sheet when you finish. Very little race committee needed. As far as swapping boats, 16's and 18's are easy, I think there is huge potential for damage on the spin boats and A cats. There is too much Lennardizing on these to be user friendly to inexperienced crews, and the A's are very different in rudder and mainsheet design. I can't even get my own rudders down. Maybe getting together after the race and doing a fun race with the more experienced skippers crewing on the less experienced boats would be fun and a learning experience, from both perspectives. I'll be there, Rick

Shoot... Krantz is AT every regatta. No need to get him on the phone when he's on the beach next to you, probably with a rumdrink not too far away <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Our fleet just did a 'Hobie Tune Up Day' with outstanding results! We advertised in the classified section of Craigslist and got a bunch of people that I've never met before out of the wood work. We had about 50 people show up!

We had these classes:
Rigging fast.
Rigging for racing.
Safety.
Racing (rules, marks, flags etc).
Righting.

Then, the idea was to get onto the water, pair noobs up with vets, run a race chasing them with the skiff. A lightning storm rolled through so only a few boats went out.

We got probably 5 new racers on the water, which is waaay better than doing nothing.

About 90% of my business is recreational sailors, the other 10% are racers. Most complaints that I hear from noobs or rec guys is that the boats take too long to rig, so we focused on demystifying rigging. We got a few of the new guys to rig their H16's in about .5 hour.

Then we worked on making the racing aspect a little less threatening.

Overall the day was a huge success. I highly recommend every fleet do something similar if you want to boost your numbers.

We had a BBQ and beach party mid day where people sat and hung out and talked sailing. Things we learned:

1)Print out some rudimentary racing rules/procedures, so that people can leave with something.

2)Get the more technical classes organized ahead of time. The racing class got a little long and confusing. Maybe run a race in the parking lot and have people walk a course or the like. The little manipulatives just don't cut it for some.

3) Make sure to not call it a 'Try a Hobie/Cat Day'. You'll just get people that want to show up for a ride. But, do welcome everyone.

Have fun!!

Exactly!

And isn't it more than just the length of time of rigging? I would qualify that some. It's confusion about the pieces for rigging and the unexpected additional pieces that sometimes make rigging easier (mast steppers).

No one likes to hear, "Hey, you bought the car, now let me sell you the tires."

**************

And who the hang is Krantz?

That was my next step to contact dealers to see how they might play a role - but most of them are too far away to expect them to travel to our neck of the woods for something like that. Besides, we easily have most of the answers to any part / rigging question within our fleet (we have David Lennard!) - I think an important thing to accomplish is to break down that perceived barrier between the guys that sail a lot and the folks that are new to the fleet so that anyone feels like they can ask those questions.

I know its a long shot.....but Charlies' got a shop in Myrtle and Charleston. He has as much or more to gain than any other dealer in our area. And lets face it, his raffles were always awesome. He has no one on staff now that is interested in planning regattas. Denise is a full-time mom now. His pockets are deep enough, his interest may not be.

Any thoughts on when or where Jake? My wife is nearing the end of treatments so this fall should be better for me to attend some races. And thanks for pursuing this type of event.

My thoughts are (and jump in if you have more thoughts), is to first determine where the people are that would participate in this program. To do that, we're going to put out a pretty significant outreach program. I'm building a contact database that is growing (there are a lot of people interested in this project!). Tracie Hawks (Virginia) has graciously offered up a donation to cover our printing costs up to 500 5x8 cards. I'm working on the card design now and hope to have it done within the next two weeks (I don't have much spare time at the moment).

My thoughts are that we'll setup an area of the EMSA website that the card will point people toward. Once there, they can quickly register themselves as interested in the event. After we have a few signed up, we'll figure out what location makes the most sense. I hope to speak with Charlie soon as I'm hoping he too can play a role in helping us get this rolling. Once we have the cards designed, we'll be reaching out to the dealers like Charlie to figure out how they would like to get involved. We're obviously going to need some more cash to cover mailings and I would like to have the events to be free to the people that are taking part in.

And you're right, this will help the dealers as much or more than it helps us!

Jake

We still need a name (important for the card). I want to stay away from the word "regatta" as it could be part of the intimidation factor...and it's really more than a regatta anyway.

I like the word "Rendezvous." <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

And I do NOT like the word "Greenhorn."

And I do NOT think any manufacturer name should be attached to the name of the event.

Some ideas:
How about Cat Tune-up Day
Hobie Tune-up Day
Ask An Expert Cat Sailor Day
Learn to Fly Your Hull Day

By the way I think that Keowee or Hartwell or Lanier would be good choices in this area. If you have access to a club area with a beach at Keowee that makes it easier which will make it better!