Dave:
Excellent Data! I wonder how a poor Hobie sailor feels when he drives all that way to MidWinters and there are no boats to race one design against. Interesting in the Hobie 18 class only one showed in 2003! Bet that guy will be at Spring Fever this year instead, so he can have some real one design racing instead.
Cary Palmer
www.seacats.org

PU that stinks, and I don't even own a Hobie. But I might buy an old wooden A cat!

Glad to see that after I join NAMSA I will have a vote for officers and things.
Here I come NAMSA.
Nevermore,
Edgar

Seems that IHCA will make it less financially feasible for clubs in the mid-Atlantic area to put on regattas since 20% or more of turnout was in X-class. What's the possibility that a Hobie Fleet putting on a points regatta would just run another regatta simultaneously and on the same racecourse, say Gunpowder 1 and Gunpowder 1X? Seems a good way to fight a stupid ruling to me.

-Greg

is going to get you on PU's list buddy!

Dave

Already one of the plans, Already one of the plans.
Meets Hobie requirements, still allows a place for those Hobies to race who don't have enough numbers to have a legitimate 5 Boat class.

so Micheal... where are you going to race those A-cats? I want to check it out.

As for the rest of this stuff...can't we all just get along? I came here to read about racing, and I get 25 freaking pages of politics and whiners. Non-supporters of the Hobie decision should look at the best anology I have seen... if you want to race at a Laser Regatta, you don't show up with an I-20. End of discussion. If your I-20 can be raced somewhere else, then go race it and stop complaining. I'll do the same with my Tiger, and hopefully everyone will be having fun. If you can show me a better overall racing circiut (one design) that I can participate in, then I might be there too. Hobie simply offers the best overall package in my geographical area, and it appears that they are geuinely trying to make it better. Most serious racers will agree that the purest form of the sport is ONE DESIGN racing, so how can we hold an organization to task for enforcing that concept? The dilution of people and competitors in this sport is sad and frustrating, but like everything else in life it will evolve and shake out to be just fine in the end. So lets get back to where we CAN race, and stop whining about where we can't. Where are the West Coast F18s? Anyone want to go racing?

jim

For as long as I have been racing catamarans, Hobie has had a policy of actively driving a wedge between Hobies and other multihulls. It is not about one design racing, it is one brand racing. Sure there are some one-design fleets, but there are enough orphan Hobies to make up an open fleet at many of their regattas. A lone H14 Turbo, H21, TheMightyHobie18 FX or other oddball Hobie is more than welcome at any Hobie regatta. So stop insulting our intelligence with this one-design stuff. Hobie is and always has been about one brand racing.

From reading many of the posts on this thread & on other related threads, it appears that a lot of Hobie sailors have no idea of how Hobie Inc (NAHCA, IHCA & Hobie Cat Company) has treated the rest of the multihull community (x-boats in Hobie-speak) over the years. To provide some insight, the following are my experiences with Hobie Inc. as a one design x-boater for 25 years.

My first multihull experience was crewing on a Hobie 18 in 1977. We raced almost every weekend with the Ford Lake Sail Club. At that time the club consisted of a Hobie 16 fleet, a fleet of miscellaneous monohulls that raced in a Portsmouth fleet & us, a lone Hobie 18. The Hobie 16’s welcomed their brother Hobie with open arms. In addition to their usual fleet scoring, they scored an overall multihull winner using Portsmouth handicapping.

In 1978, I purchased a NACRA 5.2 because it had the same Portsmouth number as the Hobie 18 and my girlfriend & I were too light for the Hobie 18. The plan was we would race head to head with my buddy on his Hobie 18. First across the line wins! Neither of us had yet raced one-design. When I showed up at the first Ford Lake regatta in the Spring of 1978 with my brand new NACRA 5.2 looking to race head to head with the Hobie 18 (he was still the only one) I was told to leave. I was told that it was a Hobie only club. I pointed to the monohulls and said that there were several brands of boat racing in the Portsmouth fleet & asked why multihulls were any different. I don’t recall what if any logic they provided in response. I do recall being booted our of there.

Fortunately for my racing, I found CRAM. At the time CRAM was one half to three quarters Hobie. At various regattas CRAM also had one design fleets of Tornadoes, Sharks, Sol Cats, NACRA 5.2’s, Prindle 16’s and A-Boats. It also had a fleet of Portsmouth boats which was and is till this day the fleet of last resort for boats that don’t have enough entries to qualify as a fleet. My friend with his Hobie 18 & I both discovered the joys of one-design racing with CRAM.

When we started sailing with them, there was a Hobie Fleet under the umbrella of CRAM. That CRAM Hobie Fleet hosted two points regattas a year for several years. Those points regattas also had several one-design fleets of "x-boat" classes. In the early to mid 80’s, our friends at Division 10 kept adding to the list of requirements for us to host a points regatta. They told us that NAHCA (or whatever it was called at the time) was tightening up the points regatta criteria and they were passing them through. It became more and more difficult to comply with their demands. When we were not able to comply with their demands, they took away our points regattas. That was the beginning of the end of the Hobie fleets within CRAM.

Today, the serious Hobie racers in Southeast Michigan head to New York State to race with the Rocheseter & Syracuse Hobie fleets. That is an additional 2 to 4 hours of driving time over what it would take to come to a CRAM regatta. If not for the Hobie policy, I am sure that we would still have active viable Hobie fleets in Michigan.

Tom Liston
NACRA F-18 #79

Good comments Tom .

The H only race edict is in direct conflict with the Formula 18 concept that encourages all to race including the H-Tiger F-18 , imported from H Europe by Hobie US, built specifically as a Formula 18 .
Hobie builds and develops a Formula 18 ,--expects the benifits of the Formula concept of inclusion of all,--then announces a H-only policy ? -
The conflict and lack or reciprication of intent that desires to segment a SPORT to favor a particular brand and its parent companies profit and or a false perception of brand class only racing as being somehow superior ?,Why then build or import a Formula 18 -.?

The answer for most catamaran racing sailors are Formula and development classes like A s and race groups based on design measurement that include all brand types categorized by L B W AND SAIL AREA ,--not brand class , NOT H only.

The expansion of Formula racing and formula design measurement race groups should be what the majority of racing sailors gravitate towards and is the best solution for all involved , especially H and H sailors which are now nearly non existant geographically in the mid west region .

Carl

It's time to wish Hobie sailors all the best, bon voyage and welcome!

It's just economics. Because we can't sail in their regattas doesn't mean they can't sail in ours.

For the locals running a regatta, Hobie money spends just like everyone else's!

Did you actually read any of this thread? I don't remember a Hobie Hater among them. Most of us love Hobie Cats. We just don't like some damn selfish politicoeconomically motivated segregationist policy that messes with the regrowth of the local racing fleets. Hobie had little to do with the resurgence of the Multihull fleets at the local level. That comes from one source, a bunch of hardworking catamaran sailors who may sail ANY brand of Catamaran, give freely of their time and resources to promote the love of the sport. If the so-called Brand X sailors were to exclude the Hobies like HobieCatAmerica are proposing to do to us, then they'd have no place to sail their HobieCats in an organized event.
Hobie needs to reconsider this policy, it was dumb in the first place, and sometimes you have to just admit you made a mistake and move on.
Cary Palmer, Hobie Lover
Hobie Fleet 141

Tiger.....

I was not complaining...just showing the original letter. I am very happy with the new A schedule, and as far as Im concerned...come one, come all!!!



Its about sailing with friends, with good competition, and exchanging ideas....

See ya on the water....

Michael

Agree with Zuhl..... no Hobie Haters, just wonderers.
But you know, this may be the best thing after all. We have leaned on NAHCA's organization and maybe its time we have our own cat national organization that is not factory orientated, rather cat and sailor orientated.
Nevermore
Edgar

You may be the smartest one of us all Edgar.
Maybe it's time to just take our numbers and move on.
Will be the best thing for us all.

I'm not a Hobie hater. But I was about to buy a second boat (a Wave) until this. Now I'm looking for any other option. I will not even buy a used Hobie because of this marketing strategy.

With car sales a little slow, web surfing beats cold calling!
Anyways, after reading thru all these opinions, I think it would be interesting to hear from the fleets, that will be open to all sailors? Maybe it would be smarter if they contacted Mary, this might be an interesting article. (I sure M. Miller From the Hobie Cat Co. is watching )

I’ll tell you how it looks from the North American Hobie Class. It looks like we are going to have a growth year in 2004, not by a lot but growth all the same. The fact that many of the sailors racing in other classes have not joined this year makes the news all the more encouraging.
Have a Hobie Day,
Bob

Division 9 has chosen to run the regattas the way we want and to invite all sailors this year. We will see what the HCA does for next year.If the policy does not change I think we will be taking the word Hobie off our flyers.

The Tiger class is being run as F 18 at all our regattas.

David Lennard

Bob,

What information are you using to quantify the positive growth of NAHCA next year?

Or are you doing some creative counting?