We are pleased to announce that Rock Hall Yacht Club along w/ Hobie Div11 will be hosting a US Sailing Junior Olympic Regatta that WILL HAVE a H16 Youth Class on July 10th and 11th competing along w/ Opti's, Optimists, Laser Radials, Lasers, 420's and Sailboards. This will be the very first time that a catamaran class will be included in a US Sailing Junior Olympic event anywhere. We are very excited about hosting this event. The regatta is open to any youth teams that are members of US Sailing and will be run using One-Design rules w/ the H-16 as the boat selected for this event.

This event will be the H16 Youth Atlantic Coast Championship w/ a perpetual trophy awarded


For more information please go to www.rockhallyachtclub.org and selecting Junior Olympics

For US Sailing information please contact Ms Kate Daily/membership director at US Sailing

There will be a sailing clinic on the proceeding Thurs/Fri (July 8th/9th) at no fee, conducted by Div11 members ....

There will be a limited number of "loaner" boats availible from Div11 members for those Youth Teams that travel long distances to compete in this inaugural event.

Mr Matt Bounds/ HCA-NA Race Director will be the PRO for this event this year

For "karma" the race marks to be used will be from the 96' Atlanta Olympics .... the 7' "BIG PINKS"

More "surprises" are in the works and will be posted as finalized .....

Harry Murphey
RHYC Member/Div11-Fleet54
JO Catamaran Class Coordinator

Hi Harry. We plan on attending. Please let me know when more details are available for reserving a Hobie 16. Grandson Dan Tarleton will be the skipper. His Cousin Colin Hackett will crew.
Caleb Tarleton

Well done, Rock Hall!

Congratulations on finally getting catamarans into a Junior Olympic Regatta. Hope you have a good turnout of 16's.

Well done Well done.

Well done Harry. Did you get this done locally, or did it have to go through the main USSA office for approval? Just curious since we don't have a cat in the Olympics, maybe this is a ray of hope.

Mike

Mike we have been working on JO's for years. I think the history is instructive.

CBYRA (Chesapeake) has a JO rotation schedule which puts the event at a different Yacht Club each year between Baltimore and Hampton Virginia. The weekend is fixed in the summer schedule and the YC is expected to step up and make it happen. JO's draw upwards of 100 to 150 kids... and 20K of college schloarship money is awarded in part based on performance at the JO's. JO's are a huge deal and a huge headache for the adults trying to manage all of those kids...

Only two of the Yacht Clubs (with JO responsibilities) have any catamaran sailors in their yacht club who would be able to move the ball within the club. Many of the Yacht clubs also have space limitations and the JO's are huge events for their facilities. The stated killer issue has dealt with the issue of a catamaran at the launch...and to a lesser extent managing the cat's on the race course. So the OA's could not see how they would manage 10 or so catamarans at their events amidst the chaos of a 100 + other kids who have never dealt with a catamaran on the beach or water.

This structure means that the JO's are a complete new experience for the OA and they have never seen how Hobie 16's would fit in at the JO's. ... by the time the JO's return to your Yacht club... the junior leadership has turned over and your start all over. The comeback was always... OK... we could run a separate event for you if you want. My experience is that trying to create those stand alone events just don't have the buzz and energy needed to really take off and the barrier was enormous.

So, the negotiations are local and are always hit the rocks on the logistical details.

This year, the sun moon and stars aligned. Rock Hall Yacht Club has lots of space and over the last 5 years have gone from creating and hosting one A cat start to running several cat starts on a cat only course and hosting a Hobie Points regatta. At the scheduling meeting in Dec, I was surprised when Rock Hall mentioned that it wast their turn for the JO's.... Moreover, the windsurfers who have an olympic pipeline program had asked Rock Hall for a start at JO's. So, I raised the possibility of Hobie 16's and got an answer.... of "I think we could make this work". Historically we have had a couple of Junior teams racing at the Rock Hall annual and hobie regattas at and the club leadership remembered these sailors as well.

Harry, is the only Rock Hall Catamaran Sailor with a boat at the club and he has taken the ball from the heads up at the scheduling meeting and run with it. He has lined up Rock Hall, Division 11 and NAHCA and USSSA support. He is working on all of the logistics problems that the club did not consider at the start and those have been handled. When you make it easy for the YC to run the event and can't find any huge reasons to say no... they are delighted to say yes and see the Catamaran JO's as a real plus to supporting sailing.

We hope that we have a hugely successful event and show the other yacht clubs that Hobie 16's at JO's are possible and successful. Hopefully we can find another JO event on the east coast next year who can also find a way to include the Hobie 16's.

So... developing relationships with Yacht Clubs and the Regional Sailing Authorities, Joining these Yacht clubs and getting a catamaran fleet at the club, making their events work by showing up and racing established the foundation Harry is building on!

PS... USSA does support catamarans in all of the ISAF championships... Adults and Junors. There has been no change in those policies. USSA Olympic (Dean Brenner) supports sailors... he is somewhat less concerned about sailors in a specific class when it comes to olympic sailors.

Please note that Mr Chuck Parry, Past Commodore and Director of RHYC Sailing School was "Key" in this event and readily agreeded to include yhe H16 Youths in this event w/ Mrs Connie Ranney (our resident geek and secret resourse) quickly lending her support to the cause along w/ a large team of RHYC members

Including Mr Mark Schnieder who is not a RHYC member ... but has helped w/ every single catamaran event held at RHYC .... he has volunteered to help Connie w/ the scoring of the Junior Olympic Regatta already.

Harry

I'm very familiar with JO events, I've been helping run one of them for the past 3 years (ours also rotates, and gets more like 300 kids).

Never breached the subject locally, mainly because we don't have youths sailing cats in the cat clubs, never mind the YCs.

I just assumed that JO would need to align with the USSA Olympic program, and was hopeful that this was a sign of good things to come.

BTW, scholarship money? That's REALLY cool, but I'm pretty sure that there's a rule saying that they can't race in college if they've received money based on sailing.

Mike

Yes... I don't pretend to understand the Corrum thing... Basically if you take the scholarship money... you don't sail ncaa in college..

(Some would argue that's a good thing.)

RE Kids sailing... JO's... Keep your eye out for a club that could pull it off... Consider that the juniors will make it to the club if it's the big deal... I tend to think of the cat junior sailing as sort of a very big regional type event *Area A B and C for instance. and the summer season is pretty short. So one big event might be achievable in 2011 in Area A B AND C!

I wish... Would be a tough sell if we can only get 10 boats.

The event here isn't really stand-alone, it also serves as a championship regatta for a longer series, and those are raced on Optis, Lasers (and Radials) and C420s.

The Radials have comparable numbers to what we might be able to get for cats, but they also attend three other one-day events (we have no local H16 youth racing in RI).

Let's talk after your event, maybe we can do a lessons-learned and try for 2011, especially if there's support ($$$) from HCA/HCC. I do have some pull with the OA since I've been helping consistently for a few years. We did also have several Hobie fleet members show up to play on mark boats this year, always good to have that in the back pocket.

Mike

Mike, we are open to suggestions. What do you think should be done to boost attendance for this Event?
Caleb Tarleton

wouldn't title IX help sailing, since it's really a multi-gender sport?

Hey Caleb,

I replied to this thread to see if we can make it spread, and/or to see if there's truly a change of heart of USSA in regard to multihulls at the JO and Olympic level.

What Harry and Mark (and others) have accomplished here is truly remarkable.

Of course, what your group has done in the northwest is equally truly remarkable. I think that has great promise in terms of helping spread cats into JOs nationwide: you have an established youth cat scene out there, the rest of us are "just" trying to piece together events. Since you have a program (and presumably the youth sailors), it should be easier for your area to accept adding cats to the JO, especially now that Rock Hall has shown that it can be done.

As I (and others) have said, what makes the dinghies successful are the programs, not specific events. To be a success in the long run, we need to get programs up and running all over the place.

So, to answer your question, to sustainably increase attendance at a championship, you need a program to feed it. To pump it up it for a single iteration, you first need to talk to the customers: the youth sailors and their parents. Find out what they want, what their obstacles are, and work to deliver on that. There have been other major youth cat championships, can't hurt to contact some of those sailors and see what they have to say as well.

I have no doubt that this event will be a great success, and am really looking forward to helping it spread.

BTW, by "lessons learned" I was referring to overall organizational issues, that would need to be considered when trying to get the foot in the door elsewhere. The more organized we can be with our presentation, the better.

Mike

Thanks Mike. Just the comments I was hoping for. We are checking into adding a Hobie 16 start at the Junior Olympics in Seattle, August 21-22.

The US SAILING Youth Multihull Championship is still going strong. see http://championships.ussailing.org/Youth/USYMH.htm
A few years back, we had three youth teams from the Northwest attend the Youth Multihull Championships. The timing of the Event, during the school year, has made it difficult to get participation. Hopefully, this year it is late enough to make it easier for the teams to attend.

Caleb Tarleton
MHC

Hi Guys and Gals,

Just a quick update about the Junior Olympic Regatta being held at RHYC on July 10-11th of this year.

I saw and spoke w/ Wally, Jimmy Glanden, Rich McViegh and other Div11 sailors this weekend at the Gunpowder Hobie Regatta (34 boats this past weekend) about this event .... all are on board to help w/ this event .... so we are starting to "get our ducks in a row". We currently have (6) Youth Teams already commited to attending at this early date.

RHYC is recieving lots of positive interest/comments from other CBYRA members/clubs about the inclusion of catamarans and sailboards in this years event ....

Hobie Div11 will be hosting a (2)day Sailing Seminar on Thurs/Fri proceeding the racing for Catamaran Youth Teams. Notible Div11 Sailors such as Wally, Jimmy Glanden, Rich McViegh and others will be the "Quest Experts" and will be passing on their knowledge to the youth competitors

A gentleman named Mr Gary Jobson, (you maybe have heard of him) has contacted RHYC and has informed the yacht club that he will be attending the event ....

A nationally ranked sailing coach and sailor, Mr Geoff Becker has agreeded to host a US Sailing Rules of Racing Seminar Friday night for the Youth competitors ....

There have been a limited supply of "loaner" boats that have been offered for use to youth teams that wish to attend by Div11 members.

So we are progressing in our planning and organization ... we have just arranged for the marks and RC equipment to run (4) seperate race courses w/ different color marks for each course: Hippity-Hop(Opti), Yellow Balls(Sailboard), Orange Tetra's(Laser-420's), Pink Tetra's(Hobie Youths)at this current date.

So if you know of any youths sailing catamarans please mention this event to them .... its always special to be a "Plank-owner" in a first time event .....

Harry Murphey

Harry, thanks again for lining up a H-16 for Dan to sail. We have the flights booked, and are looking forward to attending. The last Hobie Cat Hotline had a full page NOR for the Event. Hope there will be a good turnout for this Youth Event.

Caleb

Hi Caleb,

Can I ask which months HotLine The JO Regatta's NOR was in??? I just sent my renewal in for my HCA-NA membership recently so I missed (I think) several of the issues of the HotLine. We could say I was distracted for several months w/ larger problems/issues in my personal life.

But to "borrow" a well known quote:

"We are throttles UP .... we are a GO ...."

Harry Murphey
harrymurphey@yahoo.com

Harry, the notice for the JO Event is on page 20 of the Jan/Feb Hotline. See http://www.hobiecat.com/hobieclass/

I am sure Matt Bounds the Hotline Editor, and also PRO for this Event had a hand in getting this page published.

Caleb

To all Youth Competitors:

I have been recently asked by a Youth Sailor from Canada whether he could compete in a US Sailing Sanctioned Junior Olympic Regatta in the United States. Mr Caleb Tareton contacted Ms Lee Parks of US Sailing and she informed us that any youth could attend and compete in a US Sailing Junior Olympics Regatta as long as they are a member (in good standing) of their National Sailing Authority.

So basically if you are willing to travel, and are a member of your National Sailing Authority you can come and race w/ us. And if you are willing to travel to us, I'll do my personal best to arrange to borrow from a Div11 member a "loaner" H-16 for your use to compete in the Junior Olympics at Rock Hall Yacht Club. We are currently trying to work out insurance cover through the HCA-NA for these boats .....

Harry Murphey