Hi Chris-

Your comments are not unwelcome and perspective is a necessary ingredient in the overall discussion. Events have, however, moved far past the "carrot and stick" phase - we chose carrot last year and made a tremendous effort to meet the conditions given; get other classes in addition to the Tornado to submit themselves as equipment. We also agreed a large majority of cat sailors would not quit USSA in protest - in fact we saw a slight bump in membership as a result of people recognizing your point about participation. I don't imagine there were very many sectors within USSA that could boast membership growth. We did, in my estimation, all the right stuff and we did it in an adult and measured manner. Members of the Board said to me privately that they felt the multihull community simply would not be satisfied unless a cat was back in the 2012 Games; I assured them this was not the case - we just wanted to see the process play itself out in a fair manner and allow for the international majority to prevail, whether that meant a cat or not. We introduced a motion to that effect before the House of Delegates, carefully following procedure and crafting the wording to meet the requirements of the Board as expressed in private conversations and e-mails - it was passed unanimously. Then the Board did what the slim majority wanted to do anyway - our Delegation voted again as a bloc, first to reaffirm the November decision and then to not change men's or women's events. We knew that a majority of the ISAF Council favored revisiting the November decision with or without the US's votes. What dismays me is that we met the Board's conditions for reconsidering events in the case that the Events were reopened and yet they still voted against changing the events. Multihulls have had a majority in every vote on the issue, but without the US bloc, the 2/3rds majority needed could not be achieved.

So - direct talks, cordial interaction, engaged volunteerism, an intensely interested constituency and a successful effort to meet stated conditions = failure. What do you do with that? I'm not being a smartass, I'm serious. I'm experiencing a very real crisis of commitment.