Report from Laura Sullivan, Chair, Div 4 NAHCA
Dear Sailin' Buddies,

A day in the life of Hobie 101.....

This weekend, Seattle's Hobie Fleet 95 hosted a Hobie 101 class at the Sail Sand Point sailing center. The class is meant to be an introductory class on how to sail catamarans - primarily focused on the Hobie 16. The turn out was in record numbers. Fourty two (42) people registered, with a seating capacity of 35, which we stretched to 37. Unfortunately, we had to turn a few people away.

What was also different this year from previous years, is that the students came with more sailing experience and were wanting to learn to sail multihulls. We also had more boat owners, who came with better prepared boats. Many monohull sailors were feeling a need for speed. We had approximately 1/3 of the class from ages 8-16, 1/3 of the class were in the early 20's-30s, and another 1/3 from 30-45 years of age.

It does help to have a team of dedicated Hobie sailors to lend all those helping hands that are needed to handle a full days worth of activities. The day starts with registration at 8:30 am, and with all the activities ends at roughly 5:30 pm. The cost of the class is $20 per person with a decent lunch and after- sailing snacks and beverages as part of the registration fee. Quite the deal. It's a totally break-even proposition, virtually no money is made....on purpose.

Registration was handled by Lynn Rickard who brought trophies, posters and pizzazz to registration. Jerry Valeske was the primary class room instructor, while I would pitch in tidbits from a crews perspective. Jerry did the lions share of work in the background in preparation for the class. The class room portion of the day was approximately 2 hours long, using the Hobie University book as the guideline with supplemental Power Point materials to demonstrate particular key points.

Peter Nelson led the "on the land" demonstration - on how to rig a Hobie 16, how to tack and gybe from the skippers perspective, while I showed the crew perspective. He then showed the students how to get on and off the wire - when you have to deal with a tiller, a mainsheet, and unhooking a trapeze -three things to do when you only have two hands!

Following this hour and a half demonstration, was a short lunch break, jumping right into the students rigging either their own boats or Sail Sand Pont boats for the sailing portion of the class - to put into practice what they had just heard. This part of the class has the most demands on the local fleet in that nearly each boat needs a personal coach to help with the rigging or answer questions, so the Fleet 95 members were very instrumental in keeping things moving - Jerry Valeske, Peter Nelson, Paul Carter, Mark Sele, Al Jones, Mike Gross, Dave Wilder.

Sail Sand Point (SSP) provided the locally donated Hobie 16s and Waves that are on hand for the class, so this enabled us to get more non-boat owners on the water. There are currently 6 Hobie Waves and 8 Hobie 16s ready for use for open sailing. Most of these have been donated through the years. The local fleet basically takes as many "better" parts of the recently donated boats to enhance the existing boats. As the years have progressed, the donated boats are in improved condition, certainly not new boats by any standard, but they sail decently enough for learning, and nothing is particularly lost if an errant crash landing occurs due to an on-shore breeze.

A team of Fleet 95 members - Caleb Tarleton, Todd Christensen, and Jerry Valeske - worked a number of weekends - getting the Hobie 16s and Waves back into sailing condition - after a long winter break - in preparation for open sailing and Hobie 101.

Sail Sand Point sailing center was a very gracious host, letting us use their boats for chase support and their classroom. Caleb Tarleton has been instrumental and continues to be irreplaceable working with Sail Sand Point and ensuring we're covered for our events.

While the cats were still being rigged and launched, Caleb, Jerry and the Hobie Fleet 95 members manned the support boats to provide on-the-water coaching to the students. It is truly like herding cats at the beginning, while the students are trying out their new learnings. We don't like to see the students too frustrated, so we let them struggle for awhile - experimenting - but if that doesn't work out, we provide hands-on assistance. If all the coaching in the world isn't working, we'll board the boats and provide an "on the boat demonstration". We then let the students give it a try and when it's working for them, we jump back onto the chase boats and drive away to coach another boat. Sailing ends around 4:30, pm followed by de-rigging, and then a decompression session with beverages and snacks at roughly 5:30 pm.

The weather cooperated beautifully with sunshine and a nice 7 knot training breeze on Lake Washington.

The students left wanting more....and so we're working to figure out how to provide more opportunities for them to keep the momentum going. Many of them would like to get involved in racing - we're thinking this is due to the age group that came to the class. Whether they're goal is racing or cruising, we've encouraged them to join us on the Friday afternoon / evening before our existing regattas for coaching if they like. This will give them a good idea what the local sailing and fleets are all about and give them a chance to meet all the members. They can also learn and make mistakes on the water, while being safe - our chase boats at the ready.

We're encouraging them to stay for Saturday and Sunday sailing on their own - to practice their skills, and then attend the regatta dinner on Saturday to ask whatever questions they might have from their days sail.

A very special thanks to all the volunteers for making this the smoothest, most successful Hobie 101 that has been hosted to-date.