olympic class intro cat.

In an F16 thread I had mentioned the idea of a 12/14 not trap boat for Olympic class as a great intro for youngsters into the sport. Sort of a cat version of the Laser. I had mentioned that in NZ all of the top flight sailors are serious mono heads by the time they are in their teens and even our Tornado Olympic sailors are ex board sailors. Families here run P class and Starling campaigns for their kids that run into tens of thousands of dollars and the Yacht clubs here are very biased against cats as "real" sail boats. How bigger hill is it to gain a class like Wave to get more young people after an Olympic medal on two hulls?

In the UK the young cat sailors campaign on Hobie Dragoons and Dart 16.

The RYA have chosen the Dragoon for their selection trials, training and racing until the new SL16 is available in sufficient numbers.

John

The Dragoon is the RYA Junior training cat, The HOBIE 16 is the RYA and ISAF youth training cat. It would be the Hobie 16 that could possibly make way for the SL16 after 2007. But, without opening too much of a can of worms, the fact that there were 70 odd Hobie 16s at the recent youth europeans, may mean that the status quo may remain a bit longer.
As a parent/owner and sometime trainer in both the dragoon and 16 classes, i can thoroughly recomend them both for their junior/youth roles.

Paul [infusion GBR7 - therefore no commercial axe to grind]

I stand (slightly) corrected..... <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

I suppose my idea is a NON TRAP, 12/14 foot boat for younger people thatn a trap 16 is going to introduce. In this country these sailors are gone by the time they are 12. They are mono sailors in a mono World. My idea is that a new medal in SMALLER cats will introduce a large folowing because there is an Olympic merdal at the end of it.