The USSA Multihull Championship has participation issues!

The Area Qualifier is simply not supported by the racing fleets in several of the USSA Area Regions in the country.

Since, this is one of the major benefits of USSA membership and if it's seemingly not wanted... perhaps we should put the money to something else. Before that happens. I propose some changes.

The AREA Qaulifier event is usally an additional event in the racing season and evidently the majority of racers simply don't want to compete in this regatta. If their time is limited... they choose their one design event rather then the Alter Qaulifier.

If we think the Alter Champiohship and qualifiers are important to the sport we need to add value to the Area Qualfier.

I propose that each national racing class urge or insist that the regional class include the championship event into the racing season by counting it towards their high point or national ranking.

For example in Area C. There are 3 active Hobie cirucits for 16, 17, and 18s... plus an active A class racing ciruit and finally a now very small open class fleet of primarily F16's.

If the natinoal class asked each regional fleet to participate in the area qualifier and allow them/ order them to use their one design finish position as points towards the class season high point or ranking .. the Alter qualifier event would have meaning to more of the regions sailors.

The one design classes would not have the incentive to schedule their own OD regatta and make the Alter qualifier... an extra event.

The effect would be to make the one start Alter Qualifier essentially a regional champinoship with the winners earning a slot in the Alter championship...

And the regatta would be important to any fleet racer since it would be just like any other highpoints regatta. If more induement is needed... bonus points can be added.

The region's racing schedule would not be oversheduled resulting in small fleets and financial strains on the host clubs.

Thoughts?

That is an interesting Idea.

Go for it! There's nothing stopping anyone from doing such a thing. I really don't feel that the championship system is broken. I do feel that our promotion of it is lacking some luster.

mbounds said, in another threadThis what you're talking about Mark? seperate starts? How is it determined who the qualifier is?

Pardon me for being a bit slow

Why not just drop the qualifier and make it a Champion of Champions event with invites going to the winner of each classes National (or NA) Championship?

John,

No, Mark's concept is that it would still be a Portsmouth/Open Class event on the top level .... but individual classes could be scored also at the same time at a lowwer level. So competitors could actually compete in their class and the overall class. They then would be able to take the points they earn at the "One-Design Class" level back to their particlar classes' "High Points"/Class Ranking compitition in their own class. Effectively it would be a "local" championship.

Mark's concept is a method to put some value to attending the "Area Eliminations" at the One-Design Class level

I think that this is an EXCELLENT proposal and would help bring the "beach cat" community back together healing some old slights and wounds.

I've found that at the Yacht Club level they like hosting a Alter Cup Area Eliminations as this gives the "club" cache' ... ie:national credibility w/ US Sailing .... and it gives us beach cat sailors exposure to/at the Yacht Clubs, we just need to find a way to insure attendence ....

As both a HCA-NA member and a Open Class Sailor I would support this proposal and I hope that others would too. I think that this could be a WIN-WIN situation for the beach cat community


Sail Flat, Sail Fast, Sail SAFE
Harry Murphey
H18Mag/#9458, Fleet 54/Div11
P19MX/#86, CRAC/Open Class

I'm pretty sure that what Mark is saying that the area qualifier would be a stop on the local points circuit for the larger classes....H16, TheMightyHobie18, N20, A-cat...The race would continue to be conducted under the portsmouth handicap but within the results, each class earns points in their annual respective class points. The first place a-cat get's his a-cat class points and so on.

Rhody's suggestion has merit too but I, personally, would rather continue the open portsmouth event as they are slightly more inclusive of everyone.

Bob,

Because not all sailors attend their individual classes championships for various reasons. And I would like to compete against Wally, Mark Mutterman, Richie etc once a year ... and most likely get my butt kicked!!!

Harry

Before anything happens the Alter Cup Committee need to get way more organized. When you can't even get on the website and find a schedule and results for the qualifiers you've got to be thinking it's time to get back to basics. I don't even know where or when my qualifier was this year and I was just on the website trying to figure it out.

Start with the fundamentals.

Does the Alter Cup Committee even have an e-mail list of past participants to send notices to? Where's the ground game?

Bob,

Sir, You are just clouding the issues w/ some some "technical details" ... but you do have a valid point. Though when Hobie sailors keep issueing statements like "the biggest One-design Catamaran Class" and the HCA-NA doesn't do much that is appearent to the everyday catamaran sailor to support the Alter Cup it sends the wrong message. It is after all named after our organization's mentor and namesake. I know you have been trying to change the "Hobie Only" policy and heal the old slights and wounds that were caused by this policy in the beach cat sailors community "at large".

To add a little credibility to Jake's statement about inclusiveness ... I do have a P19MX ... there is NO National Championship for either the P19 or P19MX ... how about the N5.8, the N6.0, the N6.0NA, the H21SE, the H14Turbo ... any of the SuperCats, Mystere' ....there are many older designed catamarans with capable sailors/racers on these catamarans ... or how about Karl Brogger on his FX-One?

We MUST find a way to keep these sailors involved in our sport ....

Harry Murphey

No

My idea would be 30 to 40 boat single start regatta scored on portsmouth for the US Alter Cup Area qualifier.
I would make sure the spin boats were racing for at least 30 to 40 minutes which would put the top 16's finishing 8 minutes back and the race should complete in an hour.... Standard stuff.

The difference is that I would also score the one design classes out and this finish would count towards your final one design score for your season long high point score.

I would market it to the Hobie 16, 17 and 18 sailors... who have all raced on 16's once upon a time as... the Area qualifier and the Hobie Division Championship and put up or shut up family death match.

In Division 11, the Hobie high point series is usually 9-10 regattas so with the addition of an Alter Qualifier/ Hobie Div 11 championship.. So.. that would be 10 regattas usally drawing 30 or more boats.

I would market the regatta to the A class as a Regional single handed championship against the 4 F16's and the strong 12 boat Hobie 17 Div 11 fleet.

This is a top down proposal.

The organized classes would have to support it at the national level.... or at least approve their local regions moving forward on something like this.

That would be the class leadership of NAHCA, the USAC (A class), the NAF18 Class, Sharks and Isotopes and NAF17's.

The 0pen Class of (N20's. F16' and the Dead Boat Society have no nationoal schedule to speak of and I assume they would go with the flow).

Schedules are being made for next season now. If the national class leadership thinks it's important... now is the time to lead.

I propose that the MHC request each national class to propose a class iniative which supports the Area champinships and the US championship as an integral part of their regional and national calendar.

First things first. The Alter Cup Committee needs to lead on the Alter Cup. If they're not organized then there's nothing there to sign on to.
The Alter Cup has a big uphill battle in front of it and to make matters worse they just insulted the largest catamaran class in the country by declaring the Hobie 16 an unacceptable Alter Cup boat. Big uphill battle. They need a ten year plan not a next year plan.

I don't think they declared anything "unacceptable". Just because they chose another boat, doesn't mean they look at the 16 as unacceptable. I've been watching this whole thing with great interest and I am not supprised at all the remarks from the H16 guys. I don't think the N20 guys got this insulted when the N20 was not the boat of choice for the 2003 Worrell 1000.
My first cat was a H16, they still have a special place in my heart. Would you like a kleenex?

Well this is a bit off the subject but here's the story. They had a fleet of Hobie 16s ready to go with a location. They asked us to change our boat for the event. We said no our boat is fine the way it is. They said no it's not sorry your boat needs to change or it's no acceptable. That's insulting.

Bob, either you're not being honest or you're just being obtuse. That isn't the way it went down. Quit it.

Mark,
I think what you suggest is a great idea to increase participation at the qualifiers. Pretty much everything here in the Pensacola area is portsmouth, so we don't see the same issues regarding OD. Also, we sail almost year round, so we don't have some of the time limitations others do. Participation is certainly an issue I would like to address as I grow into this job, help from any direction is appreciated.

I certainly am going beyond paraphrasing so that I could sum things up in a few sentences. But that is effectively what happened.

Under that sort of paraphrasing, then; The Hobie Class rejected the Hobie Factory's choice for the event.

Neither version is completely fair, and both are offensive to good people on two sides of an issue.

You're entitled to your opinion Bob, but you don't really know because you weren't privy to any of the discussion. John is right, that is not how it went down.

Enlighten me.