The US SAILING Youth Multihull Championship is a good example of a pathway to the Olympics. Sarah Newberry, the current Chair of this event is one of our top sailors on the path to the 2016 games. She also was the winner of the Youth Multihull Championship in 2006. In prior events, she was 7th in 2002, 3rd in 2004, and 5th in 2005.

In 2006, our local Hobie Cat sailors in Seattle helped train three teams to race in the 2007 Multihull Youth Championship. They were trained on Hobie 16's and Tigers. Since the event was sailed on the SL 16 with spin, they got experience on the Tigers. This was not done with some damage. Two Tiger sails were destroyed during this training.

Art Stevens tried to get us at Sail Sand Point to invest in at least one SL 16 to train future Youth Multihull racers. We did consider this option, but decided not too, as the boats would have limited use in our overall program.

Currently, we have seven Waves and eight H-16's in our program at Sail Sand Point. The boats are available for our Monday night races, and we are hoping to add a second night of racing just for Multihulls.

We may not be training sailors to enter in the Olympics, but on the other hand, three of the sailors selected for the America's Cup Youth Team are from Seattle.

Caleb Tarleton
www.sailsandpoint.org