Actually, regattas in Div 9 have been mostly Hobies. After the decission by HCA, each organizer was given freedom to make their event Hobie only. No one decided this was in the best interest of their event, sponsors, or the sport.

I am glad to hear about the increase in H16s. Any increase in cat fleets is good for us all.

OK, I'll stick my head up on this, since I participated in the meetings where much of this stuff happened.

NAHCA did not exist as a separate entity from Hobie Cat Co. until 1988. Wick Smith was elected chairman at the first "real" meeting at the 16 Nationals that year in Corpus Christi.

At the 1991 NAHCA AGM in San Diego, paid membership to the NAHCA was voted in, since financial support from Hobie Cat was waning.

The membership numbers originally reported to Sailing World included Hobie Fleet memberships, not just NAHCA Memberships. Paid NAHCA / HCA memberships have never been more than 2,000, and have stayed in the vicinity of 1,000 for many years now.

Other topic: Kingston - The last time I went was 2003.
The race management was so poor that I wrote a letter to the head of the Canadian Yachting Assoc. The signal boat was a sailboat with a malfunctioning engine. There were no chase boats. The mark "boat" was a gigantic aluminum barge driven by a guy who was drunk when he wasn't stoned.

Bob (rhodysail) was there - he should remember how f'ed up the racing was.

The launching area is a marina, for crying out loud! They trail a floating line to help you pull yourself in to the ramp:


Problem is that the rope doesn't go all the way to the base of the ramp, so usually sombody (Fluffy in this case) goes swimming:


(That's Dan Borg and Karen-Ann Xavier in the boat behind us, fending off the big boats parked in slips just out of view to the right)

Pat (pbisesi) is right - Kingston was overpriced for what you got (nothing), the launching area was inhospitable to beach cats and at least in 2003, the race management was substandard.

Port Burwell is much nicer:



For a $40 entry fee, each team got a nice soft cooler, real trophies (not Mount Gay hats / t-shirts which is what CORK gives - totally inappropriate for junior sailors), continental breakfast every morning and a chips/salsa/margarita party after sailing on Saturday.

Is there a secret password too? I was actually planning to sell those #s to Pakistan for an undisclosed amount.

Pakistan already has them and will foward them to you for free.

Gotta just love those Pakistani's, They phone us every day, using names like "Biff" and "Clay" selling "phone time" and trying to sound as if they are just down the street.

The Hobie edict was only part of the reason it was cancelled. Other factors included the high cost of using the venue, what we got in return for that money, a screw up the last year with the fleet not having a crash boat, poor launching facilities etc, etc..

The replacement event is the Sandbanks Open which is about an hour drive west of Kingston. Here are some pics from the 2003 event:
http://westlakesailingclub.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=2003-Sandbanks-Open

The date this year is Aug 6-7. Yes it is an open event.
Dave

It's Kinda like when we call Dell support and get forwarded to India and some guy with a hugely thick accent answers "Hello this is Bob, how can I help you?"

Mark: Kingston also ran a H16 Nationals(lowest attendance ever). I didn't get into the fact, as Dave mentioned, that Cork charged a lot of money to run the event on top of the highest entry fee in the division and in recent years did a very poor job as Matt said. It seems as though the people that have been attending the regatta don't disagree with the items I mentioned. I will admit to going to Hobie only events. Many of us on 16's are trying to earn points to qualify for the 16 Championships. There are only so many weekends and we have to make a choice. I do try to make the Shark open event in Canandaigua every September. Finally, Supporting the HCA does not mean ill will towards anyone else. I hope NAMSA and any other group promoting Cat sailing does well. Bring your Kids sailing on any kind of boat.

Mark Schneider will be there.
Right Mark?

Hey, I talked to that guy on the phone. He couldn't help me though, so I had to talk to his manager, Martha. She couldn't help me either so they forwarded me to Kingston,where they left me on hold for ever with the repeating message "We'll be with you as soon as possible, eh." That all pissed me off so bad I decided to sell the secret HCA numbers to Albania instead, where they'll be put to good use.

Which is better?

Fewer regattas and higher attendence

or

More regattas and lower attendence?

Again, the age-old question... As I see it, the cancellation of several races may have encouraged more participation in the few that remained. Does suck for those who have the resources to race every weekend, but maybe this isn't such a bad thing for those that aren't?

Hmmmmmm!

Fewer with higher attendance would be my preference. There are a LOT of local alternatives!

Didn't Mr. Diamond do a poll on this already?

Yes, but you forget that these are AGE OLD QUESTIONS that are required to go round and round ...

Pass it on...

Not on the gulf coast. We have kept all of our regattas open, we only lost the support of HCA. And have increased the number of boats racing and are increasing the number of members in our open fleet of both country and western type boats.

It doesn't look like this thing has hurt the Hobie Class. According to the Sailing World thing they had 900 members last year. There is a list of 2005 members on the Hobie Class website that lists 938 members. I'm guessing that the number will go up after all the Continentals.

Whats a "country and western type boat"????
do the crew have to wear big hats??