i'll agree that there are many much faster boats than hobie, nacra, and prindles. i'd like to see what one of those really light, fast, and thinly glassed cats would look like after 10 or 20 years of sailing up onto a beach. i beat the hell out of my prindle 16, andt it has held up extremely well. some of us just enjoy pulling up onto a quiet beach, having lunch, and then taking a few fast runs up and down the beach, and if you ask me, you can't beat one of these workhorses for doing just that. sailing is supposed to be fun, and not just competative. i bet i have just as much fun running up and down the beach against another hobie or prindle (nacra too) as anybody else in a race.

I'm not sure if this has happened to anyone else but when I tried to vote it said a vote had already come from this IP address. This is not the first time this has happened to me on this forum. No, I haven't turned this box on for about two weeks so no one else could have voted. Any ideas?

Mike

After reading all these treads, I think it is all the more remarkable that Keith Notary won the US Tornado Nationals at the age of 14 in the 70's, and how unlikely it is for a teen nowadays.

statistics is not my favorite subject, but if you throw out the 81-85 category, you have a classic bell curve.

Dean,

Off topic, sorry, but just read your bio and see you sail a Rave, they have just come over to the UK and I was wondering what they were like. How easy is it to get up on the foils?

Well, I am 28. I started sailing cats and some dingy's when I was 13 at the same beach I still call home. 15 years later, I am the second youngest sailor on the beach most weekends. I went to college and grad. school.

From my perspective, there are 4 pretty good reasons there are not more "young" sailors:

1. I travel to Australia for work from time to time and have found that the US takes "careers" much more seriously. The goals most college students have relate to a future career success, not really future lifestyle success. Many are focused on getting a management job and status symbols. I say work to live, not live to work. Success isn't the corner office. Success is getting a company to bankroll my life... ha ha ha.

2. Unbelievably horrid marketing on the part of beachcat mfg's and dealers. I take a lot of first-timers sailing every summer and the majority are so suprised how fun it is and that they could get a cat for less than $2000 for recreation. What the heck happened to the "Hobie Lifestyle". Why does Nacra's website look like a 12yr old made it? Geeezzz... come on. They both have great products!

3. Mediocre racing classes. I have always been of the mindset that if you want to run a race, you go by boat size, not make/model. Divide the race up into >17' and <17.1' and keep it open to all types of boats. The guys that are serious about racing will have the latest and greatest stuff. The people that are out for fun will do their thing and most will get out of the way of the serious people. Toss out those boat ratings. Toss out the standard race course. Do something inventive.

4. Sailing is a lifestyle. It is spiritual. To lump it in with football and baseball is really dumb to me. It is up to us as seasoned sailors to convey that message every chance we get. Wind may make the boat go forward, but sailors make the lifestyle go forward.

Great post! Great observations!

you're only 28? Can you prove it? I never thought that way when I was 28, but I wish I had... would have saved me some time.

Keep up the INclusive rather than EXclusive attitude.

John

Well John, the internet is a tricky place... ha ha ha

In April I will be documenting a complete overhaul of a Nacra 5.2 on the internet. Part of the documentation will of course, be photos and I will be in some of them so I will keep everyone in the loop. Nothing like photographic proof of age... ha ha ha

I was burnt out for a while on sailing, so I picked up windsurfing, but as far as I am concerned, a beer, a babe and a boat is heaven to me.

flouder: I'm kind of sort of documenting the overhaul of my H17, the hull refinishing at any rate. Its fun, and it gives me the feeling that I'm helping out other people along the road too.

I have now been activily sailing for around 5 years, when I first joined my Cat club, there was one other teenager/person under 23. The club was run by dowdy old men, who did things the way they had always been done, there were probably three regular female sailors. The club looked horrible, and there was no social atmosphere.

Since then, there has been a quite revolution. We now have probably a third to a half of people under 30, the club is looking attractive, and inviting, women are nearly happy to spend time in there.

We have attracted new sailors of different skill levels.

The way we were able to do this was through participation, value adding to your club and membership.

Most young people today aren't afraid to pay for things, it just needs to be worth it.
You need to constantly look at your club and see if it is doing the best for your members with the resourses availaible.
People need to feel the club is not just for sailing.

I hope this all makes sence

Ant.

Dear Catman,
Your Ip issue may be this..... there is another "cat-lover" (or CatSailor Member) in your subnet.
If your dialing into an ISP (Internet Service Provider), at the time of connection your PC is assigned IP (internet protocol) address. This address is assigned dynamicaly from the ISP. This allows the ISP to supply service to hundreds of users without having to purchase (and assign) a specific IP address to each and everyone of there users PC's.

Example: Yesterday you logged on to your ISP and received an IP address (dynamicaly) for your PC of 192.10.148.100, that is you IP address for that session. When you log off your ISP, that IP address goes back into the "DHCP IP pool". If I lived in you town and had the same ISP, I could log on right after you logged off and receive the same IP address - 192.10.148.100 - so if I logged on to "our ISP", logged on to CatSailor, voted from my assigned IP address, then I log off and you log in you may be using the same IP address..... and Mary dosen't want us to vote twice.
Now if your at work and your IP address is "static" and you don't assign IP addresses via DHCP (dynamiclly), then someone is using you PC and their going to the CatSailor website and voting - CALL YOUR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR AT ONCE - SECURITY BREACH!

Thanks for your explanation. Since I use a dail up, what you describe first is most likely the problem.