Jim,
When you are talking to sponsors, it would probably be better to use statistics that put beach cats in the most favorable light.
For instance, according to a One-Design Survey done by "Sailing World" in 1995, beach cats constitute 25 percent of all the one-design sailboats in the United States. The survey found that out of 58,181 one-design sailboats (including centerboarders, keelboats, off-shore one-designs, singlehanders, junior trainers, and multihulls), 14,767 of those are multihulls. Since most one-design multihulls are what we refer to as "beach cats," that gives us a 25 percent slice of the pie. The only category with a bigger percentage is singlehanders (like Optimist dinghies, Lasers, 420's, etc.) with 27 percent of the pie.
"Sailing World" may have done a more recent survey, too, but the above information is the only thing I could find in my files. You can contact them to find out whether they have a more current survey.
Anyway, it will not benefit you in your search for sponsorship to try to dig up the "real" figures for the U.S. For sponsors that have an international market, you need to get the figures from Europe, which is where all the beach-cat growth seems to be going on right now for the 18-20-footers.
For instance, Performance Catamarans sells very few boats in the U.S. and most of their Nacras and Inters are exported to Europe.
On the other hand, we are importing to the United States boats like the Tigers, Taipans and F-18HT's, and some A-Class cats and Tornadoes.
It is getting complicated.
When John Williams gets back from the US Sailing Spring Meeting, we can ask him how many boats his survey came up with throughout the U.S., but maybe it will not be a figure you want to use for getting sponsors.
