Contact those 40 boat owners and ask their opinions. Specifically, invite them to a U.K. regatta, or regional regattas if necessary. But get them on the water together and ask their opinions.

Are you letting a piece of paper stifle class growth?

Mark, in order to have a measurement certificate you need a national authority to stamp it. In order to have a national authority you need member with certificates. I don't think that works

Pete, we've been trying to get those sailors on the water, but it's HARD. At my club we have 12 F16 in the parking lot. This year so far only 5 did race, and most of them only once.

And that's not specific to our class, really, of the 60-70 odd cats in our boat park you can count how many do race at least one race per year on your hands...

And then you talk about travelers, people willing to take a week-end to go to an event somewhere and the number are dropping spectacularly. Maybe 2 this year in the F16 class, 5-6 total across all cat fleets...

Any suggestion on how to get those people onto the water are welcome.

We probably need to go over to the F16 private forum.

Do people give any indication of why they don't race? Do they sail fairly frequently even though they don't race? Do some perhaps feel intimidated by the idea of racing and concerned that they might be embarrassed if they perform poorly?

Your comment on the other thread about coaching may be relevant. Perhaps just having a session where you do some training drills on the water and/or some low key, fun practice races in conjunction with some social/family event might help people see the connection between racing and the social aspect of sailing.

Mostly there are people who enjoy sailing but can't or won't do it often enough to be interested in knowing the RRS. In addition they mostly seem afraid of embarrassing themselves, being in the way of someone screaming and so on. At the end all they do is reach around, capsize a bit, bring the kids or a friend for a couple hours on the water.

Then there are people who do all the RYA training courses, obviously enjoy it, but don't jump the gap and join the racing. This is due to the gap between the RYA training done at the club on Topaz/Vibe/Dart/Hobie and the racing where none of those classes are represented. They put on some "begin racing" courses but not one person registered for those...

Finding the magical tricks to get those two group of people to race is tricky.

So we have a number of initiatives, ranging from getting people into racing via crewing first with an established racer, special loaner boat only for racing or "fun" races with mostly beginners where we spend time explaining the rules and flags

Pete, I don't have the details of all the present owners. However, I have in the past sent out emails to all the owners who I have addresses for prior to Mumbles Events but that is a tiny number perhaps around 11 and yet the most recent Stealth was sail No 561 (They started at 500). It's a shame that recently apart from Paul, John Terry, Eric (Pepin), Wayne and myself F16's would basically be seen as a dead Class, especially now that some of the original Datchet F16 sailors have basically retired.
We are not the only Cat Class in the UK which suffers this problem. In the past the F20 started to grow then died away. The Spitfires grew dramatically and now their numbers are falling, on the other hand The A Class numbers appear to be on the increase but we are still only talking about a handful of boats.
You are definitely right about one thing. Pursuading every owner to attend the same Regatta perhaps on a bi-annual basis and not necessarily a National Championships. As you suggest this could help develop friendships and a better understanding of the owners views in regard to UK F16's.
Last weekend there was a F16 TT at Rutland Water SC, only one entered and he is a member there. The weather was brilliant the wind a little shifty and some of the gusts must have been in excess of 22 knots and hit you like a train. I was there racing on an 'A". Friday was a training day and I capsized, the third race on Saturday I capsized and the sixth race on Sunday which I was leading I capsized! I now reckon if there was a Capsize Championship I could be a top favorite to win.

That must be really frustrating! Still all you can do is try and gather a basic fleet and sail. I would contact all the active cat sailors you can and promote a combined sailing fleet. 10-15 boats is a lot of fun no matter what type they are.

GYC sails twice each month, nine months of the year and it is usually a mixed fleet of around 10 boats. I have to admit to being AWOL recently.

I wouldn't worry about certificates and the like until you have a more active fleet.