NAMSA is considering the following regional divisions for North America.
The file is located at http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/38649-Areamap.gif

Let us know here what you think.
Rick

Hello Rick

What is the point?

Why deviate so dramatically from the US Sailing regions?

Why are you guys reinventing the wheel?

What do you hope to achieve with a region of MD DC and NJ.

In any event, in the natural sailing region of the Chesapeake Bay sailing Area.... we have Sailors who go to Va Beach, DC Maryland, Deleware and Pennsylvania to sail

In addition we have the New Jersey sailors who come down to race quite often north of Baltiomore (god only knows how they deal with the Turnpike) but they don't go by three major cities to Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC to get to the Potomac River to race.

I would think that you should use the regional sailing associations as a starting point.... not a cookie cuttter approach sorted by states if you want to reorganize for the sake of reorganiztion.

As you may have gathered... I still have not percieved a reason for NAMSA's exisitence

Respectfully
Mark Schneider

Rick,
You show the states of NJ, PA, DE, MD and VA as being one color on the map, indicting, it seems, one area. However, the color code to the left only lists NJ, DE and MD. Please clarify. From a locals point of view, VA, MD and DE center their sailing around the Chesapeake, with lesser involvement of PA and NJ. (NJ has many fine venues along their Atlantic shoreline.)
Thanks,
David

Mark,
I think we should find out from whoever set up these divisions what their reasoning was. Some people have obviously done considerable work on this.

Personally, I agree that it is very confusing if the divisions are all different for US Sailing, for the Hobie Class, and for NAMSA. And then, of course, there are also the divisions we use for the regatta schedules in Catamaran Sailor magazine and on the catsailor.com website.

I do think that the Area divisions that work for US Sailing do not necessarily work well for the beach cats, because the US Sailing network is based upon yacht clubs and Regional Sailing Associations (RSA's) of affiliated yacht clubs, all of which relate to their ladder programs to get to various US Sailing Championships.

Multihulls are mostly not affiliated with yacht clubs, so maybe we need a different geographical layout. I don't know.

Anyway, Rick just saw this for the first time yesterday and posted it to get feedback.

The regions really don't deviate much from US Sailing's regions. The ND, DC, NJ also contains VA and part of PA if you look at the map. I just didn't have room in the text to describe exactly each region.

It deviates somewhat because it encompasses all of North America as opposed to just the US. We are still open to suggestions. I combined Area's A and B because it seems to make sense. There has always got to be some club on the edge of the Area that seems out of place.

Mike Hill
Regions Chair
Tiger #1520

Well an opinion is worth what you pay for it.
Mine is that Texas should be part of 5 not 8. because we travel to the coast states all the time and have never even considered going to colorado to race, ski maybe.

Hey Mark,

After thinking about this, I've changed my mind. I do believe there is a need for some sort of National Organization. However I think the scope should be expanded. I think it should be an organization not just for multihull sailors, but for sailors of all kinds. We could attempt to serve the common needs of the sailing community of the entire United States.

We can perhaps create an organization, leverage existing yacht clubs, Regional Sailing Associations, etc., to try to build a national community organization to administer the sport of sailing in the U.S..

Services we could provide to members might include:

Promote and develop racing under uniform rules

Exchange Information among sailors

Providing input to the ISAF regarding the racing rules of sailing

A certification program for judges, races officers, sailing instructors, etc.

Administration of Portsmouth, PHRF, or formula based rating/handicap systems

Providing for reduced rate Regatta and Club insurance by grouping our needs together at a National level.

Providing a forum for rules arbitration at levels higher than the local regatta (a rule/appeal system).

We could also form individual committees or groups to act as mediums of exchange of information among specific groups of sailors, like multihullers, and yet they could still be part of the larger organization promoting the like interests of all the sailors.



I suggest we all agree to meet in say... Portland Oregon, in late October, maybe the weekend of the 23rd, to discuss the idea of creating such an organization!

We have competed in twelve events this year. Ten of them were SOUTH of Virginia. One in Maryland the other in New Jersey.
We reside in Virginia, near Va Beach.
I don't care for US Sailing's set-up at all. Or this one, but I don't sail in any NASMA events, so I guess it does not matter.
Nearly every sailor in Va Beach that travels to regattas goes South. Not North.

Tracie

Thanks for the input from all, sarcastic and negative ones as well.

What NAMSA is about is to get the sailors out there to critique and suggest. This is obviously a first draft that needs some work.

After we sift through your suggestions and ideas and criticisms, etc., and after further considerations we then will put this all up for a vote by the entire membership.., and by all the Chapters.
It is called democracy. We want the NAMSA sailors to decide issue of this much importance.

Thanks,
Rick

Is Cuba in Area 5? Of course, they are welcome as long as they are sailors!

Don't forget a US championship the pulls 20 top sailing teams together for a first rate regatta on brand new chartered identical boats and sponsors a Junior championship for the kids as well.

But Jamie … that would take participation and work on our part to effect such an agenda.... I know you have done your part as past Alter chair... it’s my turn this year for the Area C

Take Care
Mark Schneider
Area C PRO, CRAC and Miles River Yacht Club

PS Jamie Check out CRAC's new online registration and regatta management web site. www.sailregattas.com/crac or on the CRAC web page... this program enables you to see all of the relevant documents for a regatta, register on line... order your extra t shirts, dinners, pay your dues, etc, collect your early registration discount, your US Sailing and NAHCA discount, Pay by credit card online and see immediately who else is competing... Oh yeah... it dumps the data into a csv delimited spreadsheet for use in excel or Sailwave.

We do, however, go to Texas to race - boats, that is. I don't think Texas offers much in the way of skiing. Maybe you should consider coming to Colorado for some sailing. Our fleet has more than 40 boats, with 30 of them very active. Not bad for a land-locked state.

Jamie,
It would help if you or somebody connected with the Multihull Council and Multihull Committee would explain exactly what those two bodies are able to do within US Sailing and how they are funded.

When Gordon Isco was Multihull Council Chairman, he made it very clear that the Multihull Council is not actually able to DO anything -- just make recommendations to the board of US Sailing.

I know the creation of the Multihull Committee added a little more power and maybe some budget money? I don't know, because nobody has ever explained all this very well. I am under the impression that the Multihull Youth Championship is privately funded. And I don't know about the Alter Cup.

NAMSA is not supposed to in any way be in conflict with US Sailing and the Multihull Council. My vision of NAMSA is that it can be an ex-oficio arm of the Multihull Council and implement many of the ideas and suggestions the Council receives but is not able to act upon.

All sailors (at least racing sailors) should belong to US Sailing, as far as I am concerned. But I also see a need for an organization that is specifically of, by and for multihulls to work hand-in-hand with the Multihull Council but be able to fund things and do things that the Multihull Council cannot.

In effect, NAMSA is like a class association except that it brings together all classes of multihulls because there are so few of each. It is no more in competition with US Sailing than the Sunfish Class Association is.

Mary, I really don't believe there's anything that the Multihull Council and the Multihull committee can't do. All it takes, as I believe you are learning with NAMSA, and as Mark Schneider said, "that would take participation and work on our part to effect such an agenda."

The limiting factor is the lack of volunteers/workers. US Sailing doesn't have extra money and extra workers just laying around. However they already have the organizational framework in place.

The work of both the Multihull Council and Multihull Committee is, I believe, privately funded, just like NAMSA. The advantage is we don't have to re-invent the organization. Take the efforts that are going to building NAMSA and instead direct them to improving and directing US Sailing.

It would be far easier to work in the existing framework, and to direct money and volunteers there, bringing our agenda with them, to participate in and help shape the direction of US Sailing, then it will be to create a new organization to do the same thing.

Jamie,
With that philosophy, all the existing sailing classes and associations (like the Hobie Class Assn., for instance) should disband and all their members should just throw their efforts into US Sailing as individuals?

As a multihull sailing association, NAMSA is a voting member of US Sailing and is able to cast a vote on things that require a vote, just as the Multihull Council gets to have at least one or two votes. As a separate association, therefore, NAMSA can help the Multihull Council to get things passed that are beneficial to multihulls. The same thing with HCA and any other multihull associations or multihull one-design classes that belong to US Sailing – associations get a vote, whereas individual sailors do not.

So the best way to “shape the direction of US Sailing” is to be an association with voting rights and also to have a delegate at the Multihull Council meetings to give input about the needs and interests of the particular association.

The Multihull Council should actually be encouraging more multihull associations to form and to join US Sailing. When you look at all the multihull classes there are, if all of them would form class associations and all of those class associations would join US Sailing, we would have a large number of multihull-friendly votes! Maybe we could even convince US Sailing to include a multihull in the Junior Olympic Festivals or elect a multihull sailor as president of US Sailing.

Nope Mary, I disagree. They should not disband. They have a decidedly different focus. I believe all of the one design classes should be strong, grow, and join US Sailing. I believe the Hobie Class Association should really be 5 or 6 class associations, all joining as members (i.e. the Hobie 16 Class Association, the Hobie 20 CA, the Tiger CA, etc..) I believe we should work more closely with and be members of the RSAs like I-LYA and DRYA who are already members, and should have multihull representatives. I believe we should work harder to integrate with the ranks of all of the rest of the sailors. I believe in 99% of what you are saying. When there is a need and a void we should form an organization to get what needs done done.

At US Sailing OCRA can represent me, CRAM can represent me, I-LYA can represent me, Area E can represent me, etc..

In this situation there is a void. But it is not a lack of organizations. It is a lack of volunteers in our existing organizations. More organizations without more volunteers simply make more work, spread our efforts thinner, and increase the organizational overhead without accomplishing anything more.

So in that context what I don't see is the need for or point of NAMSA. It just seems redundant organizationally to me.

An idea:
If just 3 multihull people, NAMSA people if you want, were to attend US Sailing meetings consistently for the next 3 or 4 years. If they volunteered as members of the junior sailing committee. If they hung around long enough to get their faces known and to establish credibility, I bet you would find that multihulls were in the JOs. All it takes is just a very few people who are willing to volunteer and hand around long enough to make it happen.

People, not organizations, will change the face of US Sailing and the sport of sailing in the United States.

Jamie
The Hobie 16, Hobie 17, Hobie 18, Hobie 20 and Hobie Tiger are all US Sailing member classes.

Jamie,
As far as getting a multihull into the JO Festivals, the reason that has not happened is that we do not have a widespread racing program for youth multihull sailors.

US Sailing has made it clear that if we can guarantee enough youth sailors at specific JO Festival sites and if we can guarantee enough boats are going to be provided, AND if we can show that there is a coordinated program of youth racing on multihulls, they will approve a multihull category.

So it is not a matter of three people "hanging around" and getting known and bugging people; it is a matter of multihull sailing organizations working together to get our own programs going first. This is something the Multihull Council cannot do because it is not part of its "Purpose" within US Sailing.

The Multihull Council exists to represent the interests of multihull sailors within US Sailing -- it does not exist to implement and administer racing programs or any other proactive activities. I am sure Gordon Isco or Bill Doelger, or even US Sailing President Janet Baxter, would confirm that.

If you have a list of things that could be accomplished by the Multihull Council if you had more volunteers, please share it.

Mary, I disagree. I believe that this is something that could be done via the Youth committee at US Sailing if we had multihull minded members, that is volunteers, working on it. I don't think this would be best accomplished via NAMSA, via the Multihull Council, or via the Multihull committee. It would be best pursued by getting people on the committee that does the JOs and then working from within that organization. Again, their are already plenty of Councils, Committees, etc. Just not enough volunteers to get something like multihulls at JOs. Probably a big factor here is we don't have enough say Hobie 16 fleets in major yacht clubs. I think this problem gets fixed by getting our biggest one-design fleets to become fleets within yacht clubs instead of living in their separate world and then asking why we are not included in the big yacht club events.

This argument is going nowhere, so let's just agree to disagree so that we can get back to the purpose of this thread, which is to ask the sailors themselves
what they think about this NAMSA proposal for geographical sailing divisions.

If people want to debate the usefulness of NAMSA vis-a-vis the Multihull Council, please start another thread for that. Leave this thread for the people who want to get on with the work of NAMSA.

Thanks.