Wow, that's cool. I'd love to have that kind of participation in our area. Though we get 40 or so boats at a regatta, the largest fleets: H-16 and H-20, still only total 10 to 12 boats each.

Great.... err..

While the F18 sailor is saying.. great! There is a flip side to this coin.

Is this a zero sum game... or worse... a situation which leads to loss of participation.

What about the sailors who can't or don't want to change their rides? Is the rest of the racing scene healthy or shrinking?

What is the status of the H20 fleet?
The I20 Fleet? the N6.0 fleets? How are the classic Hobie fleets 16, 17 and 18 doing?

The big picture question: Is the turnout going up or down with the rise of a dominant class?

Do racers in classes that have lost members to the F18's feel that its still worth while coming to regattas with 2 or three boats on the line or do they cut back their attendance one or two events a year and finally loose interest?

Do the left overs or (new members of the dead boat society) find enough competition in the open class to maintain their interest in racing?

What's a critical mass of sailors in a class (open or one design/formula) that is sustainable?

Is there a way to address these questions with how we manage our racing?

Can we learn anything from the EU and Down Under about how to manage our events?

Food for thought

Take Care
Mark

These are valid and interesting topics of discussion. But the reality is that while there is some thinning of other pre-existing classes it is due to migration of sailors to the F18 class. In the big picture we are actually getting more sailors to regattas as attendence is on the up at nearly all of the local regattas.

If you took a picture of our current F18 sailors, you'll find that about half of them own other racing sailboats. This half are making a greater effort to get to the local regattas than they have in the past. This is because of the competition and the large turnout...it's a great rolling snowball that has started.



Thus far, this has not been the case. Last year we were getting up to 12 F18s at regattas. We don't parade around in our own clicks and the atmosphere at these regattas is that we are all catamaran sailors first. The "entry level" and single handed classes are still there with the H16 and H17. The biggest local classes to be affected is probably the TheMightyHobie18 and H20 (which were on a heavy "lost interest" decline anyway), and the N20 (which was just starting to plant seeds in the area at the time). The H20s are gone and the H18s are fading quickly. The thing about F18 is that it offers a boat that can be sailed by smaller and bigger people and still allows people to support the manufacturer of their choice...open competition and the like too.

The largest migration to F18 has been from within the open classes. Myself on the 6.0, Cary and David on I20s, Nigel sailing various boats, a couple H16 sailors, and several TheMightyHobie18 sailors. The other sailors are largely sailing in the open class because it is convenient to them. These folks are serious about racing but the regatta atmosphere and fellowship are pretty high on their list too. Point is, the majority of our open class sailors are not there for a high turnout in the open class.



In our area, the open class usually consisted of 3 to 5 boats. An occasional Prindle, G-cat, Supercat, etc. These guys are still here and doing there thing - although they're salivating toward the F18 class too.



I certainly can't act like I know what's going to happen in two years - but I do know that F18 is growing strongly here and that regatta attendance is on the rise for now.

Quote from Jake: But the reality is that while there is some thinning of other pre-existing classes it is due to migration of sailors to the F18 class. . . . The largest migration to F18 has been from within the open classes. Myself on the 6.0, Cary and David on I-20s, Nigel sailing various boats, a couple H16 sailors, and several TheMightyHobie18 sailors.
__________________________
What you may not realize is that at least in our own local fleet, we've all been competing open class against each other for years. It's been pretty frustrating, too. Trying to run down a Nacra 5.5 on a 5.2 is difficult, or chasing your friend's upgrade 6.0 on that same 5.5 is the same version of frustration. Even matching our I-20's against the 6.0 didn't measure the competition fairly. It felt lacking, even if you won. The F-18 Class has finally given us a place where we can all sail on even ground again. The sailors had to come from somewhere, what better place than a bunch of decent sailors who were looking for common ground AWAY from Open Class.
_____________________________________
Quote:
Do the left overs or (new members of the dead boat society) find enough competition in the open class to maintain their interest in racing?
_______________________________
I think in general what happens is the top performing sailors then release their open class boats back into the community to help other improving sailors find a better ride. Didn't happen with us, hard to find homes for three high tech boats all in the same pond.
What we also seem to be seeing is that there are favorite boats in certain geographies. Florida has the Active I-20 Fleet and is probably the best choice for performance one design there. The F-18 fleet seems to be coming on strong there, too, with some racing/owning both I-20's and F-18's.
Will be nice when it can get a third Strong one-design fleet going in the new Blade F-16 Product.
Division 9 has typically been strong Hobie 18 territory, but many of those guys have already shifted over to F-18 and more will covert this year.
Lastly Thre's not one F-18 sailor that hasn't raced every other class known.
Those guys are still our friends, and that will never change. I think we'll be seeing some new faces in the winners circles now that the seats are changing though. Will be refreshing to hand those throphies to some different guys who have worked so hard for so long. (Won't be mine, I'll be at the bottom of the F-18 food chain for a loong time.)
So to answer all the Questions. F-18 or growth of ANY class is good for the sport. We've all waited to decide about attending events because we didn't know who was gonna show up. If it's known in advance that there will strong participation, the regattas will naturally grow out of that very momentum. Catracing is back and Growing, and we can largely thank the F18 movement for at least a piece of that.
CARY PALMER
Fleet 141
New F-18 Tiger owner.

I am wondering, where does all these 'unwanted' boats go, when their owners changes classes to sail F-18's?

Is there a 'graveyard for catamarans' somewhere, like the myth about elephants..

Seriously, what fate are those older boats facing? A happy pasture where the kids can play with it, or a grim process of decay in a backyard with an owner unable to sell it?

I think the majority of cases the boats were sold to people in other areas. My 6.0 was involved in an accident and totalled. Cary's I20 went to a dealer as part of a trade for the Tiger. David Mosley's Nacra 20 went to a Dad in Texas wanting to tour/sail a high performance boats on various lakes in the South East with his kids. Actually, come to think of it, several other boats have gone to people who sail recreationally with little desire for racing.

Or to me, a "B" sailor who loves sailing and a few regattas each year.
I am getting ready to buy another boat for solo and kids. There is definatly a market for used boats, marketing the boat is the opportunity.

Hello Jake and Zuhl

From your posts, it sounds like its very much a zero sum game so far. You have seen the collapse or acceleration of the decline of the Hobie 20 and Hobie 18 fleets and a major drop in the open fleet. You have not seen any new sailors joining the party from the outside either.

Regatta attendance is up as the folks with new boats participate in more regattas then they have in the recent past. And every one seems to want to join the party. The age old problem of… well…. I am not committing to this regatta because…. I don’t know who is going is seemingly solved now that you have a large enough pool of racers. You hope that the sailors who are left are motivated by the social scene more so then the racing and will continue to participate. So far… so good!

What you don't directly discuss is what happens to the remains of the TheMightyHobie18, H20 and Open fleets. It sounds to me like they must either change (now) or die. Best find a buyer (recreational sailor) for your old boat ASAP or else when the music stops... you will be left with an old boat and no market for it and no racing group either. It seems to me that your club(s) should find a way to keep the remaining sailors interested in racing the boats they have or, within two years, you will ratchet your total number of racers downwards. For instance, one strategy would be, starting and score the other spin boats (F16 and spin equipped 20s against the F18’s… this will keep the few non F18 sailors competing against similar performance boats (and against teams of similar skills). Likewise, recognizing that there is no future in one design TheMightyHobie18 or H20 racing in your region could be declared by regatta PRO’s. The surviving three boat fleets would then be grouped into open class rather then pretending that one day… some day… my 3 boat class will regain popularity. Better to do the triage sooner then later before you find that the racers have lost interest in the lack of a competitive racing scene and are gone and not coming back. Note that in Europe and Down Under… they don’t worry about one design classes as much as we do in the states… They just race everyone together and then sort out classes, divisions etc etc later.

One thing that your region is rapidly loosing is a bit of diversity in boat choices. A word of caution, a fact of life is that many couples on the TheMightyHobie18 and H20 may not want the challenge and physicality of running a chute. In division 11, the Hobie 20 class attendance peaked one year after the boats introduction. Several of the H16 and Hobie 18 sailors bought new 20’s and raced the boat for a year (best turnout was about 15 or so boats. Two things then happened, their crews preferred their old ride (especially the 16 sailors) AND the rest of the competitive fleet of sailors stayed put on the 16’s. In the end, the fun factor for the crew and the competition in their old fleet drew most of the racers back to their 16s. Most of the new 20’s were sold off. A few guys just moved out of cats altogether while some just never got the juices flowing to go racing in the small fleet of 20’s and their boats sit to this day. The open class sailors on comparable boats (P19, Nacra 5.8 and Nacra 6.0’s) never got a chance to convert over to a big one design fleet and they did not have any experience racing against the 20 sailors until the class was down to just a handful of boats. Today these 5 or 6 20’s race in open against the P19MX’s and Nacra 6.0’s. The point of the history lesson is that a catastrophic decline has happened and for quite good reasons. Its important to not loose folks during the evolution…. (These cats don’t breed particularly well
{biology joke from one of those evil evolutionists!}).

Take Care
Mark

well... I really hijacked this thread! Sorry Dave.

Sounds like you want an F16~!!!! solo and perfect for the kids, maybe a second hand T4.9 or even a Blade?

Math doesn't work.
Regatta attendance is on the rise.
I think if anything, we have finally found some common ground for those of us who have raced open class for years.
Catracing grew from One design in the Form of the Hobie 16's, has spun aimlessly in circles sometimes as the choices for the Racer have been too plentiful to allow a smart guy to select the next boat that will happen to be the class that catches on. Pity poor Steve Cooley who is so Dedicated to the Hobie 18 Class that he only found AFTER he bought a brand new one that Hobie wasn't going to be manufacturing them anymore. Love the Guy, He loves his H-18.
Obviously his Committment to the 18 is bigger than that of Hobiecat at this point.
(Don't Get me started, & I just bought another one) Wish it were a NACRA!
I think as racers, we'd all be better off if there were fewer models available, as a consumer picking a boat for himself or his family more choices means a greater chance of purchasing a boat fitted to your needs. I Don't think there's any problem at all with developing a line of boats that will be for the hi-tech racers and lower tech versions of the same which can just be funsailors. Portsmouth Racng doesn't chase anyone off it just creates a option for trying to level the playing field for those who don't show up with enough boats for a class that day. We'll have more than a few days like that this year, Sailing against an old Ace on his Super20 and a Mystere 6.0 with a hooter. We'll sail heads up and congratulate the winner just like one-design, IT will be a great Day for all of us.
CARY
PS: I think the old boats live with the old cars. Whaddya wanna do stop production? What would we do when all the old boats wore out and we all had to go to Cuba for our antique Chevy & Nacra Parts?

Sounds like a Winner. Lets all help Eric pick out a boat.
Who's going to volunteer to help him make the payments?
I bought my family a $250 Hobie 14 to play with. If the kids take it out and destroy it, I am not gonna be heartbroken or bankrupt.
It hasn't broken in 30 years & It's probably not likely too. Fine for when 3 teenagers are out goofing around in the breeze. Nice little play boat when we're training with the sunfish racers, too. I highly reccommend it.
CARY

Don't get everybodies hope up.

There are no secondhander F16's around. The sailors keep hanging on to their boats. This winter we saw two Taipans F16 in the Catsailors classifieds and both owners reconsidered their decision and cancelled the offers within a week. Thus leaving a little group of disappointed (potential) buyers. And a small group has been hunting these for years now.

I don't expect to see a secondhand market develop anytime soon for the F16. At last count there are over 30 F16's in the US (Counting the new Blades) and if somebody is selling than it is as good as always to a fellow club member. I can truly advice that nobody starts looks seriously for a secondhand F16 in the USA. You will not find one in time before a friend of the owner snatches it away before you can make contact.

Having said this I think Arbo can do better than a H14 when looking at his stated goals. Even a 500 US$ Prindle 16 of say 1995 or younger will be a better choice. Relatively light, good weight carrying capacity and easy enough to sail and right solo.

Wouter

Zuhl, Right on!

There is a Nacra 5.2 (or 5.5) aging away at the yacht club, I have made an offer. 2 good mains, catbox, wheels, trailer, and the tramp is still good.

My boys are 18, 16, and 12 plus they have an 8 year old sister that wants to sail. The ARC 21 is too big for me to take the littler kids out on without another adult, so I figger an old 17-18' will serve the purpose.

We will see........

Since this thread has taken a sharp left turn from the original post, I`ll help it along a bit .
I think what`s totally screwed cat-sailing worldwide is the One-design "we must all sail the same design boats" mindset. It makes us totally fragmented and gets people to stop racing rather than encourage it, since it`s apparent that we all prefer different designs based on our own peculiar personalities which makes us buy more than just one brand of car.
If a guy pitches up at a regatta with a Nacra 5.0 he must race in an open class of 4 or 5 dissimilar boats, even though there may be a fleet of ***16`s who have their own start, despite his rating being so similar to theirs that he could compete on a first-in-wins basis with them, but he`s not allowed to start with them, so his motivation to race is removed. (ISAF lists N5.0 with a 14sqm spinnaker at 1.14, ***16 is 1.16) That`s just over 1min/hour of racing, who are we kidding ?
If paragliding worked out this way it would have died out long ago. There are divisions based on performance categories, and you fly any glider in a particular division, no handicaps. If they split out into makes & classes, there would be 37 categories with 3 pilots in each.

Now the flip side is if the ***16`s allowed him to start with them he would probably end up selling his boat and joining them eventually, his boat would go to a new sailor & he`d grow the *****16 fleet, and so the cycle could repeat itself. The way it is now, he gets tired of competing in a small open class and goes off to another sport, with a resentment toward those who excluded him.
I looked up the ISAF ratings of most of the boats you guys seem to sail, and sometimes I think you`re splitting hairs. They might not be totally accurate in some respects but at least you can see which boats, on paper at least, should be similar in performance. Inter 20 rates at 0.95, Nacra 6.0 is on 0.98, Nacra 6.0 SE is on 0.95 (same as I-20), Tornado is on 0.94. Your USPN ratings will probably say much the same, that there is at best 3 minutes difference between these boats in a race of 98 minutes. That`s 1 minute 49 sec per hour of racing difference. I`m willing to bet that if all the I-20 & N6.0 sailors at a regatta were to swop boats, the top 5 positions would still be occupied by the same names. the top few sailors probably beat their mid-fleeters by a greater margin even when sailing identical boats.
The reason we can`t seem to get cat-sailing back on the map is the more "one-design" classes we create, the more we divide ourselves up into smaller fleets.

Maybe Formula type racing should be more open in nature, and include older boats that can be modified to be included. This is happening with F16, but the F18 class rules seem a little too hung up on issues that exclude older designs from being included in their setup, which is a pity. Imagine all the Hobie & Prindle 18 sailors could do a few mods to their boats and be allowed to sail F18. So what if they were not as fast as full F18`s, perhaps they could become a "b" fleet within F18, or be given a rating close to full F18. Would that not get more guys on the water than having to sell their TheMightyHobie18 in a market with no resale value to buy a "new" F18 ? At the worst it would give them the right to compete, even if it`s against slightly faster boats. It would pose no threat to the "real" F18 boats, since they would be a bit slower (So if you get beaten by an old TheMightyHobie18 with kite on your brand new Hobie Tiger, you know you need to practice .)

Just a few thoughts.
Steve

Perhaps the guy should have researched the regatta he was pitching up to before he got there to see if there were any 5.0's that planned on racing one design. If not, then he should have planned on sailing in an open fleet. He may have even been able to find a ****16 to sail.

All it takes is a phone call or two

John

Steve,

We do that at smaller local regattas. With my 6.0NA (no spinnaker) it's rating was very similar to the F18s. if I were one of one or two open boats I was put in and scored with them on a couple of occasions (would do really well in light air and not so well in heavy air). Our race committies are usually very open to doing this when both the ratings are similar and the sailors agree.

As far as the F18 rules excluding older designs, it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" thing. In the case of an F18 organziation that is trying to appeal to the broadest audience possible, there is a very fine line between having a rule set that makes it fair for all manufacturers to compete and a rule set that allows too much unrestricted development making competition very expensive and turbulent. F18 has done a very good job establishing a rule set that is strict enough to allow fair competition but keep the costs low. If the rules begin to broaden to include other older designs, the risk is that some other areas would be opened to development. Even then, what boats would want to be able to adapt to the rule? The Hobie 18, while is a great design in many aspects, doesn't have the high aspect boards or latest hull shape (advantage?) or the proper mast height, etc. The Inter 18 fits most of the bill but has a carbon fiber mast. First) do these sailors even want to be part of the rule and Second) will opening up the rules to include them inadvertantly create unstability in the class?

Arbo said:
"Or to me, a "B" sailor who loves sailing and a few regattas each year.
I am getting ready to buy another boat for solo and kids. There is definatly a market for used boats, marketing the boat is the opportunity."

I know a lot of you pooh-pooh the boat, but there is not a better boat for youth out there than the Hobie Wave. Add the Hooter and you have a boat that sails as fast as a H16. It is also bullet proof. The class usually has more boats in attendance at regattas than most classes, has a Youth Division built into every Nationals, Worlds and North Americans.
In fact, it would be the perfect Youth Boat for ISAF.., spread worldwide, affordable, indestructible, etc.

Also great for women and older sailors.
Rick

Hear hear
In our local distance races, it is not unusual to see results based on sailors, not boats. The finishing order may read: P19, I20, N6.0, Bim.A cat, P19SPIN, I17R,ACAT, H20, N6.0 SPIN, H16, I17R, I20, N6.0, TheMightyHobie18 H16, TheMightyHobie18, TheMightyHobie18, H20
F18 is about a silly spec.
How can you argue keeping costs down with three sails? Was looking at what I needed to do to meet it, and gave up. How much of a whipping will I put on everyone because my mast ball is 1" higher (or lower) than the specification?
For instance, Hobie 18 will not qualify because of the curved beam, etc.
Please, re-dimension the spin pole in the spec, so it makes sense!
This type of thing just saps enthusiasm, which is in short supply for cat sailing around here already.
What really is the reality? Are we truly all going to take our toys and go home if someone shows up with an all carbon bi-hull? I think we are far more likely to just stay home with our old TheMightyHobie18 if there is no aknowledement of us, because we don't correspond to a specification.
I raced a h16 for years, and got all excited when a hot boat showed up. So It was a no contest, but It was fun to see. Not as fun as seeing Bob Curry put the hurt on spin cats with a A cat uni off the wind! Or Randy Smyth finish 20% ahead of everyone else on his old Prindle 19. No one design here. Fun.

I understand what you`re saying, Jake. Besides, If the guys who owned TheMightyHobie18`s would just pitch up for regatta`s in the first place, they`d get their own start if they made a class, and wouldn`t need to be part of any new Formula type racing. What is it with sailors, spend a lot of cash on sports equipment, then leave it in the yard ? Gotta get class associations & organisers to beg them to go sailing !
I think the Formula idea came from this, try to get all the open class boats of similar peformance to just go level-rating and do away with all the scoring headaches. I`m all for it, I gotta do the scoring at our club .
We have an almost OD situation at our club, then along comes a lone Hobie Tiger and a Dart that makes me take times and figure out handicaps .
The real sad thing is there must be thousands of boats like the Hobie 18 /Prindles, Nacra`s etc just lying around at clubs or in yards, never being used.
I`m also referring to club-level here, I think if the F18 class were to allow certain boats to race within their setup, like P18/TheMightyHobie18 under special dispensation, similar to the way it is being done in F16 class, they would have no problem upholding their own class rules, these older boats could form part of a "sub-class", but it will only attract sailors if that is what they want. And if these guys are not interested in racing their boats now, what will change that ?

Steve

So...Jake....can I count on you to help lobby for Amy and I to be able to race the snake boat straight up in the F18 fleet at Bare what you dare in April?

Jeff.