Mary,

Thanks for interjecting a useful question! Most regattas do seem to focus on one-design these days. Why not have a big open-class(es) regatta?

For local classes like the Isotope, there is no incentive to travel to one-design regattas because the one-design fleet there will never match the local fleet size. I travel so I can sail with other classes.

Personally, I'd much rather sail in a large fleet of similarly rated boats ("B-fleet" in my case) than a 5-boat fleet of Isotopes sharing the lake with a bunch of other 5-boat fleets.

If that isn't an option, then I hope to at least have a multi-class start so I can pretend I'm racing against all of them. At past regattas, I've asked Jeff Price (why does Jeff always seem to run the races - major thanks for that!) to start us with the H-17 and H-18 fleets, which have pretty close portsmouth numbers.

For non-local fleets, I suppose the story is the other way around. Those sailors probably race on handicap at home and only get big one-design fleets at away regattas. I can understand that desire too.

Regards,
Eric