Has anyone else noticed how little activity has been on this forum? Well, maybe that says something about what's being done to promote youth sailing. Seems as if there was a boom of interest in youth sailing promotion a year or two ago. Now it seems to have decreased to almost no interest. Sure there are still the U.S. Sailing Nationals and the NAHCA youth continentals but what else is going on? I heard a few ideas proposed to promote youth sailing nation wide, includng a nation wide youth points series, a trailer full of dragoons going to yacht clubs and etc. But has any of this actually happened?
3 Youth teams are going to the Hobie 16 worlds in Mexico. Bret Sullivan and myself have both aged out already for U.S. Sailing competition, Sean McQuilken might have another year, but how many youths are there that are younger than us? There are few that have been competing at the U.S. Sailing events and most that attended all of them in the last few years have or soon will age out.
The NAHCA could hold more events as the NAHCA age is 21 and would allow all of us to race again, if we all attended maybe it would encourage younger youths into attending and getting into bigger competition youth racing, there have got to be more youths out there that could go to a youth nationals.
So how about it? Maybe we could even talk a few younger aged teams into going to Mexico and showing the world that the U.S. has a promising future for cataraman sailing.
I know Sean, Bret and I plan to get together and practice somewhere in the Northeast before the worlds. If any other youths are considering going we would be glad to have you join us.
-Todd Riccardi