Several comments!

Building a youth fleet of ANY high performance boat is tough. Take a look at the 29ner class on the east coast... They had their first ever mid Atlantic regatta this fall. (5 loaner boats)! They have tried for 5-7 years to get this fleet going and its been very slow. The 420 remains the youth 2 man boat with local, regional and national competition and a track towards collegiate competition... while the 29ner is a niche boat with a handful of regattas (maybe 3 or 4) on the east coast. It is targeting families that are shooting for the ISAF youth worlds... not local yacht club adoption into their junior sailing programs. This looks like the track the SL16 will take as well.

mmadge points to a potential problem.
If the sailing catamaran families who have a kid shooting for ISAF world competition and they hang onto the Hobie 16 as their junior catamaran of choice... How will the SL16 take off and how will the kids be successful in international competition? ...

Will we build a two tiered system?
SL16 sailors who compete nationally and internationally
Regional sailors who compete on H16’s no spins.
Does this make sense?

Remember... the juniors time out at the age of 21... if it takes 5 years to build a national racing class... Your current 15 year old will be finished with the class and it might be very difficult to really get a competitive national fleet going in those 5 years ($$$$).

Its a bit of the chicken and egg problem.. do you have events... that then draw sailors and boats.... OR do you have boats in the field for which you get races going.

If you have competition for the sailors.... eg Hobie 16 non spin junior class ...Do you help or hurt youth catamaran racing in the USA.

Has anyone ever surveyed the number of junior cat sailors and where they go racing.

I know the Syracuse fleet has lots of juniors in their B and C fleet H16 races... What else is out there..... Anyone know?

BTW
Take a look at the promotion and marketing effort they have invested for the 29ner... They had a terrific web site profiling their world championships in San Francisco (see the Tiger fiasco for a contrast). hey market spills and chills, color and energy!

For what its worth… I tried to GIVE Hobie 16's AWAY as free charters for a junior Hobie 16 regatta on the Chesapeake bay... I managed to find only two teams and they bailed at the last minute. (my marketing to juniors... sucks) The junior fleet at the regatta was two of our local cat jr teams. I am not sure I can pull it off this year because of insurance issues and lack of interest among half of the local juniors with a competing event.

We need a coherent program that everyone buys into.... It looks to me that we pull the small number of kids in two directions and have a suragate fight, the age old,... my class is better then your class AGAIN! (And there is NO SL16 class yet)

Mark
Sssh.