Since Rick quoted me on this forum, I would like to provide some clarification regarding the Multihull Council. The voting membership of the Council consists of the executive committee and the member organizations. Each organization has 1 vote regardless of the number of members in the organization. The MHC is in essence an umbrella organization for all multihulls. It represents the multihull community at US SAILING. What it does not do is administer any programs. Its role is to bring the multihull program proposals to the board of directors and advise the various committees of our position on multihull related and general USSA issues.Also to represent multihulls on the board of directors, the USSA nominating committee and other committees that require a member from each council. As of last year there is now a Multihull Committee which administers the multihull programs such as the Alter Cup, Fast & Fun and the youth initiative. The committee would also administer any new programs that the MHC can persuade USSA to adopt.



I have been involved with the MHC since its inception in 1985 and have served as Chairman, Board Member, Area Representative and on various committees. I believe there are three of the original members left, but there have been and still are a number of dedicated volunteers that devote a great deal of time and money to continue to serve multihull sailors and maintain a presence within USSA. USSA is still mainly controlled by the yacht clubs as they have the largest voting bloc. A large part of what we have accomplished has been due to some of our members gaining positions of influence in their yacht club and by maintaining a continous presence at the USSA meetings. We want them to know we are here to stay.



If you can form an organization and find volunteers to stick with it, more power to you. Before the last annual meeting I sent out nomination forms for Area Representative to over 60 multihull organizations. The response was 0.



Don't think that an umbrella organization will have more clout with USSA, but that's another long story. Just think of USSA as Washington and the MHC as representative from one state.



Good Luck,



Gordon Isco