I just wanted to express my concern for our slowly dying sport. It is a shame that in all of the effort that we as sailors but in to the act of sailing NONE of it is put towards keeping our sport alive.

It troubles me that there is not any efforts to motivate our youth to become interested in sailing. I do not know if it because we live in this Generation of Need for instant Gratifications but we need to do something.

I am embarrassed to tell my family that I am about to embark on a 600 mile journey that is supposed to be regarded in our sport as one of the big races and they have to hunt/and or sift through the bowls of the internet to find any information about this race.

Bottom line it needs to change and if it does not we as sailors should sail off into the distance never to return.

I call on all sailors alike to describe to ONE person of youth and when and if you do, do it in a way that would captivate them. X-treme. WHen you think about it OUR SPORT IS VERY X-treme. I promise that if you tell one it will matriculate to others.

A message from a concerned sailor.

Charles Tomeo

I took sombody new to the sport in the Miami Key Largo race this year. This guy was heavy into White water kayaking so I thought his mind set was very appropriate to this type of activity .He saw many aspects in a short period of time that catamaran sailing is .Ultimatly his hypothesis was "If you asked me on saturday after the race if I liked it,I probably would say that this sport is not for me",I however caught up with him on sunday afternoon after the smoke cleared and his response was"Yeh know ,I d'ont know if I love this or hate it".I knew then this is a candidate in the making.That truly was an honest response and sums up at least my feelings about sailing competitively also.I realize I was not the best example,to show someone new to the sport maybe he'd go with the likes of Livingston or Roberts ,White the list goes on.There would not be any grey area of "like-dislike" They would be hooked right away.

I have been working my oldest daughter pretty hard the last few years. She really enjoys sailing and this year I hope to bring her up to a competative level. She also has her first boyfriend this year so I will be getting him involved this summer as well.
There's no better motivation to get involved in something than trying to impress a pretty girl
It's the girls that we should be getting involved. Once that is done the others will follow. I also like the fact that this is a sport that she can be just as competative in as any man. Of course than we have the problem of being beaten by the women all of the time!

I sail with my seven year old daughter and 5 year old son all the time. They love it. My son is already talking about singlehanding the 5.2 . I'm not quite ready for that and he needs about a hundred more pounds before he'd be ready. All you can do is show them the fun side of it, if they get the competative spirit, good for them. If they want to kick around the bay and occasionally fly a hull to show off, even better.
Rob V.
Panama City
Nacra 5.2

I would like to suggest a plan of advertising our sport that seemed to work really well for a couple of us here in New England. We contacted a collegiate regatta out of Newport and got permission to 'solicite' some of the spectators and sailors not in that rotation to go for a 'ride'. In a couple hours, we gave 10-15 minute rides to interested and capable sailors who were excited about the sport of catamaran racing. Many of these avid sailors had never been on a Cat and only seen pictures of I20's and N6.0's in acticles about the W1000. (this was a couple years ago). There is no starker comparison to the speed they experienced than getting back on a 420 or FJ dingy after doing 15 knots double trapping and flying a hull accross the harbor. We had simple flyers about our local fleet and racing schedule that year. In the end we gained publicity, interest, and even a couple sailors that summer. It was well worth the effort, and certainly something I would recommend doing again in the future!
Chris Titcomb
www.acceleratedchaos.com

I did this with one very hot sailor in the UK, took him out on my Hurricane 5.9 in a good F5 - 6 and we were racing HARD with some other boats - It really blew his mind that we were doing such high speeds with boats only a few feet apart. Remember a few of his comments :

"Looked like a close port/stbd call and Simon just flew a hull over the transom of the other boat !"
"never been so fast"
"never had to think so fast"
"Never had to plan so far ahead because of the speed"
"Never had to work so hard to stay on the side of a boat"
"and simon tells me I am about 3 stone over weight for the boat, how do you get down to the weight and geep the strength - he was an FD Crew !"
"never slowed down so fast when we slammed a wave"
"I'm knackered, the crew does not get a rest at all"
"I suggested he had a helm, but he said so thanks, 2 bits of string are enough at these speeds"

He did not buy a boat, but it soon got around the fleets that there is a lot more to these boats with 2 hulls than meets the eye.

this is a converted mono-huller talking.
Posting from I95 on my way down to hollywood for the race. Keep the faith, sailing just aint as popular as it used to.

Charles,
In terms of sailing in general, based on the numbers at Junior Olympic Festivals and major regattas, it appears there are more kids sailing than ever before in history.

There is also excellent participation in the Miami Yacht Clubs summer sailing camps.

Last weekend I took a dozen of my son's friends out sailing on a Hobie Getaway for his 8th birthday party. The kids took turns sheeting in the jib, the parents were excited to see their kids sailing.

On one of our little adventures we were in the middle of the Mission Bay Yacht Club Cat Fight as they rounded the windward mark. I had sailed in the race the day before. Upon leaving the event, one competitor asked if would be back the next day, I said I was having a B-day party for my son, "Good Dad" he said, I said I was taking the kids sailing "Great Dad" was his reply.

It was nice to be up close watching the Tigers and I20's set the chutes on their way downwind, it was nicer taking the young ones sailing.

Keep the faith.

Chip Buck
Catamaraning since age 8
www.whirlwindsails.com

We just had a Fast and Fun Event in Kirkland, Washington today. See http://www.ussailing.org/multihull/fast&fun.htm
We used our five Hobie Waves from Sail Sand Point in Seattle, and offered free sailing from noon to 6PM. Do not have the final count, but we had well over 150 people out on the water. Our skippers included young sailors from Sail Sand Point, in addition to our regular Hobie Cat racers. About 20 volunteers took part. The wind was light, and luckly, Hobie Cats Northwest, our local dealer, had 12 Hobie Kayaks used to also get people on the water. This is the second year Sail Sand Point has presented this program for Kirkland.

US SAILING no longer has the Hobie Cat Waves and windsurfers making the tour, and it is up to local sailing organizations to continue this program. This is our fourth year having Fast and Fun Events in Seattle.

If you have similar Fast and Fun events in your area, you will see the results.

Caleb Tarleton
US SAILING Multihull Council
Sail Sand Point
Hobie Cat Div.4, Fleet 95

Following up on what can be done to Motivate Sailors in your area, the Fourth Annual Hobie 101 Sailing Seminar was just held in Seattle.

Peter Nelson, Laura Sullivan and Jerry Valeske presented their sold out, standing room only, program to 38 Sailors at Sail Sand Point,http://www.sailsandpoint.org/
Starting with four hours of classroom instruction from the Hobie University Textbook, sprinkled with "War Stories" from this group of National and World Regatta Veterans, we moved to the beach. Laura hosted a great lunch, then after setup, and tuning we moved on to the water for four hours of sailing. Six additional volunteers from Hobie Cat Div. 4, Fleet 95, joined the instructors for coaching and assistance. We had two Sol Cats, one Hobie 18, sixteen Hobie 16's, and four Hobie Waves in the class. The students were from age 8 and up. Setting two marks kept the cats herded, and provided a controlled course for our two SSP Safety Boats. About half of the boats conducted righting drills, which we recommend for all starting sailors. Once this has been done the fear is eliminated. We noted that this is a first day drill for all of our beginning sailors in our SSP classes, as directed by US SAILING. With the boats back on trailers they then returned to the classroom for a critque and review.

On June 25, this same team will present Hobie Catting 102 at Sail Sand Point, for an advanced class that includes introduction to Racing with Rules of the Road, Starting, and practice races. A $10.00 donation for each class covers the cost of lunch.

Peter and Laura reported on the success of their program at the Hobie AGM and US SAILING AGM meetings last year. They have documentated the growth in Fleet Membership, added Regatta participation, and catamaran sales.

Caleb Tarleton