“The numbers prove that it is - at least marginally so.
In 2004, there were 1373 Hobie 16 race participants in HCA Events - before the "Hobie Only" edict went into place.
If you take out the events in Divisions 6, 8, 9 and 12 that "fell off the map" because of the edict, that number drops to 1302
In 2005, there were 1319 race participants - and that doesn't count the H-16's that race in non-sanctioned events (the southeast US and Texas mostly). Modest growth at best, but growth nonetheless.
Of course, it's not like it was in the early '80's. Every class goes through its ups and downs.”
>>Thank you mbound for the information…it gives us one piece of the puzzle. Glad to hear that things are on the up swing.
I tried to do a search on how many new Hobie 16’s were sold in 2005, but could find no hard numbers.
We all know that there are a ton of Hobie 16’s out there on the used market that can be bought for a song. It is a great avenue for new sailors to get into catamaran sailing. A cheap old Hobie 14 or 16 have probably brought more new people to cat sailing than any other thing…but this seems accomplish only so much. Obviously this takes things only so far.
Can you imagine if Ford, GM and Chrysler were still making the same exact model they did back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, how many cars do you think they would sell?
If computers stayed with the format of Commodore 64’s how far behind do you think computers would be? In almost every avenue of life things are moving forward at break neck speed. Why shouldn’t cat sailing do the same?
As for the money…People go out and plunk down $20K for two PWC all the time…why wouldn’t they do the same for a Cat if it was presented in as enticing light?
If you want to get more people involved in the sport then someone is going to have to go into the GENERAL PUBLIC and make cat sailing desirable again…Like Hobie Alter did in the beginning. Seems like a lot of time is spent “preaching to the choir” and then wondering why no new people are coming thru the doors.
Regards,
Bob
