Rick,
I had a long conversation last week with Art Stevens from U.S. Sailing re: cats and youth regattas ... Based on that conversation and the dates of the youth Nationals at Port Clinton this summer I think NAMSA should really push for something different than a "NAMSA" youth regatta over the summer. These are my thoughts:
1. NAMSA should encourage all regattas to include cat racing and encourage the hosting organizations to make NAMSA membership a requirement as others do for USODA, ISSA, and other classes. NAMSA has to support the regatta hosts to do this, but I think NAMSA should not establish themselves as a regatta hosting organization. Look at how U.S. Sailing supports Jr Olympic youth regattas and any other large scale event....they provide guidance in training and regatta hosting to a certain standard but they don't personally host events.... Let's set our standards & define our objectives before we go out to sail around in circles!
As far as summer events that NAMSA can help with and spread a name: MYC (my club) is running the Volvo Ocean Race Youth Regatta 4-6-2002 and the Summer in the City Youth Regatta June 8,9 2002 and is now including catamaran classes in their registration forms. If the board consensus is that memebrship should be required at youth regattas MYC will do it for the Summer In the City regatta. If Mary's idea of joining and receiving cat sailor is affirmed than it is an easy sell to the youth cat sailors that I know locally to become a member.
NAMSA should proabably support or at least advertise at the Port clinton regatta for the nationals. If Larry Hale wants to host summer regattas NAMSA should also support him and advertise the NAMSA name.
2. To do this we must define clear objectives that NAMSA has concerning youth regattas. For example, NAMSA Guidelines for regattas might include things like ... participants must be NAMSA members, miminum guidelines for setting a race course, NOR & registration forms, medical forms, # of races that NAMSA endorses, requirements for clinics at regattas, exportation of the race events and sport to the local public, endorsing clean water aactivities etc. This is not a small task and I think we need to work hard to be very organized and focused to overcome the label that catsailors have acquired from most dinghy sailors in the past before we host a large NAMSA event...These dinghy sailors make up a large number of the parents whose kids we eventually want to recruit from opti's into cat racing and we will only do it if we can offer cat class racing and an organization that is clearly focused on the sport as it pertains to their children.
3.In a broader sense, to get youth sailors to step into cat sailing we need to get cat sailing accepted at existing established youth regattas. I think NAMSA should focus on getting cats accepted into the ORange Bowl youth regatta and make that our big youth debut. The Orange Bowl regatta has optis, lasers, 420's etc... it is an International Jr olympic event that occurs over winter break in Miami. It is pretty much opposite on the calendar from the youth Nationals held in the summer and would give youth cat racing the same balance as other classes - big 4 day event in December ; nationals in the summer. Coral Reef yacht Club hosts the event - I believe we could lobby to include cats but would have to get someone to enty up $500 or more to include the class...we would benefit if we got brand new boats from a manufacturer like Mystere and I am sure I could get MYC to offer a race committee and place to house the participant's boats along with some support from CABB. The beauty of this concept is that if we pulled it off with new boats we would instantly legitimize cat sailing for youth racing... the bad thing is that it requires NAMSA,MYC and CABB to swallow their egos and let CRYC and US Sailing take credit for what we would be supporting and doing. But by including these established organizations we are able to advertise and legitimize cat racing through the normal channels that most youth sailors climb through.
Be interested to know your thoughts all the way around
