I was going to stay out of this ,but seeing as I did get to vote within my own division on the Hobie 16 with Spi issue I thought I should pipe in and be heard(or seen)
My initial response when I heard of the Alter Cup being sailed on the 16 with Spi was great go for it.My thinking was any exposure for the class was good.Later after hearing some of the possible long term effects to the class I recended my vote and said no.Upon further thought and if it did make a difference I would probably say yes again( I will explain later)
Couple of observations about some of the earlier posts.Brent C. I know you and consider you a friend ,but I have to agree withh Matt B. on this,the Alter Cup should never be about the boat.Also in terms of the area K qualifier being competitive,I am considered in area K and have been down to three regattas in the area and I never heard it mentioned once.
On the other side I read Gina Mcdonalds comments and smiled.Hey we miss you and Matt here in division 7.You guys would be awsome on a 16 with Spi.
Interesting Chris you brought up Bigfoot.I am pretty sure you are talking about my good friend Teddy Jagger.(Arguably one of the best cat sailors in the Midwest).I had a good chat with Ted on this whole spi issue.Now for this to make any sence you have to know Ted ,he is one of the most layed back ,common sence thinkers I have ever met.(he uses the expression "don't get itchy underwear").Ted is a long time 16 sailor and recently has outfitted his boat with a spi.He still races the 16 with out the Spi but he really likes sailing with the spi.Couple things we got to talking about is that maybe the 16 does need some new life injected into it(that really was hard for me to say).I mean look over in Europe where they are drawing 40+ youth teams to thier championship.Yes I know sailing is on a different scale over there,but maybe getting some more youth and excitement into the class is a good thing.Hey I'm 50 years old this year(another tough one to say) but I did not feel that old at the Nationals.Maybe that is not a bad thing but I remember when I went to my first Canadian Nationals and John Liefield won he (was 40) and I thought he was old.The point is here in North America you just do not see that many up and coming youth teams.So maybe short term for us 50+ guys keeping the status quo on the 16 is good,but long term not sure how long us elders can sustain the class.