The market has spoken, and that is why a lot of people are buying X boats - because Hobie isn't the leader in innovation anymore. (although I do respect the Tiger) And so now NAHCA thinks that by being "protectionist" they will protect/promote their brand.

There are a lot of X boaters out there who have done a lot to promote "Hobie" fleets. So I guess these Hobie fleets will now lose a lot of support. Its a shame. We were all getting along so well.

"This in spite of the fact in the late 1960's a surfboard maker named Hobie Alter
brought out a catamaran that was faster and more exiting to race than the Aqua
Cat. Which brings us to Art Javes ' Hobie story: "the Aqua Cat was the first
catamaran he sailed,"Javes said of Alter."I met him at a boat show in
Anaheim,California.He had the neighboring booth,selling his surfboards.I
introduced him to the Aqua Cat. A while later he called me ans said,'your going to hate me.'
and said he was going into the catamaran business. I said I didn't mind. Having
another catamaran around would only help people get the idea that sitting on a boat is better
than sitting in it."

an excerpt from a Full and By article written by Bill Schanen(Editor and Publisher)

That about sums things up.

Tracie

Division 12 shouldn't be effected much. Out of 7 points regattas last year 4 were run by open clubs. Out remaining 3 regattas one may not happen, a non-Hobie sailor is running one and my parents are scheduled to provide the committee boat. They won't do so it if my brother and I are excluded and the last one will be OK without us. On a side note my parents have donated their time and all of the gas to get to the site at about $400 per year to support a Hobie fleet we are a not even members of. I personally resigned as Vice Chair and my wife who is the Treasurer may do the same. Our commodore was blindsided by this whole thing. He found out when people started calling him. A special meeting is in the planning stage and we will find out what sides of the fence people are on. Many sailors have been playing both sides of the fence. We have had offers to sail the bigger regattas much like the 18hts have but have been more loyal to our local fleets. We will become stronger due to sailing outside the Hobie bubble. Inside the bubble it is hard to attract new sailors because you just sail in your bubble. I had a sailor track me down after watching us fly past him while he sat on the rail of a 48' lead sled. He is buying an I20. If we hadn't been sailing in a mixed fleet he would have never had been aware we even existed.
In closing I wish them well rebuilding the division and fleets in this new era. Having been division commodore, run events and fleets, it will take more than the 20 sailors I estimate they will have left. I look forward to meeting new people. All sailors will be welcome as always. This are my personal views.

I am a “pig boat” Hobie 16 sailor of 20+ years. I think the recent move by NAHCA (now HCA) should be viewed in a positive light. Sure there is plenty to be grumpy about. Both sides lose initially – we lose sailing with friends; we lose numbers ($) at regattas; we lose resources for putting these regattas on.

But in the longer term, I think it will make both groups stronger. While many of the non-Hobie sailors may be lamenting the loss of a great organizing authority like NAHCA, it will give the X-class a chance to finally stand on its own 2 feet rather than constantly be in the shadow of “Hobie-dom”. Finally, X-class catamarans can come together and form their own mission – to promote multihull sailing of all kinds to everyone. Finally you can emerge from the stigma of “Hobie Cat” to form your own identity. I believe after 10 years of “nursing”, X-class, NAMSA, or whatever can be and is ready to be weaned. Some can say it was done rather suddenly, but the fact is that this issue has been boiling and broiling for some time now.

The Hobies will initially be weakened. But long term it will give them a chance to focus on their mission – building a one-design fleet. Both entities can co-exist in America. And both entities can help introduce and promote multihull sailing to interested persons.

Have you ever had a lover break off the relationship? At the time, you are mad, angry, sad, discouraged, and a host of other emotional responses. But after a few weeks, you start saying “She was no good for me, anyhow!”, and things like that. Well, that is what is happening here. Initially there are some hurt feelings. But in a few weeks or months or years I believe both groups will look back and be thankful for the split.

I wish the HCA and the X-class all the best in building their respective fleets. Nothing beats a multihull! Regardless of who made it, it still beats the pants off a Laser!! (even if it is a “piggy” Hobie 16!!)

Why are you knocking your own class of boat? In all of our years of putting on seminars, the Hobie 16 is the only class that was still out on the water sailing VERY fast and having a blast when the wind was up and all the other boats had retired to the beach.

Mark,
CRAM exists as an open organization. You can make it anything you want. The infrastructure is there. Just organize a fleet and bring it to the regattas. You will get your own start, trophies, etc. It takes someone to organize the fleet. If you want more Hobie 16s, get organizing. The effort to revive Division 10 could be refocused to bring Hobies to an existing, thriving organization with regattas already scheduled. What could be easier?

Roger Cochran

Roger,
That's exactly what I told Jeff Rabidoux, who is now working to revitalize Division 10. I admire his energy and dedication to getting the Hobies together again. I have been doing what I can to help him promote his cause. Heaven knows, I sure miss the wonderful years Rick and I spent racing in Division 10, and I wish they were still happening. But sometimes you just can't go back in time. Maybe he'll prove me wrong.

Kirt, you are wrong.
Never have "most of the active Fleet officers" of H-Fleet 97 been "X-boaters".
I didn't become an officer until I bought an H-boat and joined NAHCA.
Yes I still owned an 18sq and an Isotope, and sailed them occasionally.
When you volunteered to be Commodore, you owned a Nacra 5.0, a Nacra 18sq, a J-22, and I don't know what else, but you also owned an H-14 and were a member of NAHCA.

We, the members of H-Fleet 97, were always adamant about complying with NAHCA rules.

It was attending the H-Division 9 regattas which convinced me to get an H-17.
Not because the H-17 is a great boat or even a good boat for me. At 205lbs I am at a severe disadvantage on it.
It is because we used to get 10-15 boats at regattas, which made for great racing. We often have great battles for NOT DFL.
While attendance has dropped off, we still have class racing and we are expecting two new boats next year.
It beats the hell out of being the only A Class or Taipan racing in open fleet against a Trac 16.

This is great news for the world of catsailing!

--Allows cat sailors to better integrate into the world of sailing at large instead of being pigeon holed just as "Hobie guys," as though we aren't really sailors first (cat sailors second, and Hobie/Inter/Prindle/ARC/etc sailors third)

--Allows Hobie to spend its money where it wants to and not subsidize or worry so much about their competitors making better boats

--Will ultimately strengthen US Sailing and NAMSA; HCA could be allowed to run their events with NAMSA ones

--Will free up local cat fleets that have been "Hobie Fleets" in name only from the charade and from unecessary oversight from an organization that may not represent their local interests

--Will help foster formula racing, the approach used in most other forms of racing (eg F1, Nascar, Kart, AMA Supercross) yet can preserve "pure" one design classes that are big enough (eg H16); a car race between Porsches only is alway going to be smaller than a race between several marques of sports cars with similar performance...and Porsches wouldn't be what they are if they didn't have Ferrarri, Audi, BMW, etc pushing them

Good luck to all of you who put in countless thankless hours on the administrative side of the sport we all enjoy!

great post eric.

NAHCA's decision to exclude all non-Hobies from their regattas is most likely driven by the success of Formula 18 racing. Hobie Cat Company would love to see all the other Formula 18's go away and leave only the Tiger. This sentiment is not shared by all of the Tiger sailors that I know.

Through excluding non-Hobies, Hobie Cat Company can preserve the sales pitch "Buy a Tiger and you get one-design racing as well as Formula racing". In other words buy a Tiger and you can race it at Hobie regattas and then you can take it to regattas that the rest of the world puts on and race it there. The flip side of that is what Hobie is saying to the non-Hobies. They are saying to us "Thanks for the hospitality & hard work hosting regattas but stay away from ours". Any Hobie fleet that chooses to follow the company line & exclude other F-18's from their regattas is also saying that to the rest of us.

Could this new agressive Tiger marketing be due to the high Euro / $ exchange rate which will drive up the price of the Euro manufactured Tiger?

Tom Liston

I helped start OCRA back in 1995 in an effort to address, for Ohio, many of this issues that have just confronted the rest of the country. Before we really got rolling there was a fair bit of communication behind the scenes getting the local fleets in Ohio all lined up and in agreement before we put out our first newsletter and schedule. I have attached a copy of that 1st newsletter because I think it does a reasonably good job of explaining what our goals were back then. I hope what we have done can be of some value to those of you dealing with it now.

First my fleet. My fleet is the catamaran fleet of the Alum Creek Sailing Association in Columbus Ohio. Our fleet captain, as part of his duties, is on the executive committee of the ACSA. We pay ACSA dues, we help run regattas, and we get help from the rest of the ACSA when it’s time to put on our big regional OCRA regatta in the fall. ACSA has enough members to afford a very nice committee boat, a chase boat, insurance, etc.. and we have just started construction of our own sailing facility including docks in the state park on Alum Creek Reservoir. The benefits of being a fleet in the context of a larger yacht club are huge.

Now to the regional associations. I would recommend that as you move forward you take a look at least at OCRA, CRAM, & CRAC as they have each done this yet each in their own way. I am the most familiar with OCRA, reasonably familiar with CRAM, and only limitedly familiar with CRAC. Hopefully someone from CRAM and someone from CRAC will speak up to tell their stories and help some of the folks just getting started to avoid some of the pitfalls and to build the kind of local and regional sailing groups that will best serve the sport.

In Ohio most of the fleets were self-sufficient and several were associated with Yacht Clubs already. Hence insurance wasn’t an issue. Each fleet already had its own. OCRA was therefore formed as a loose organization providing an affiliation between fleets, a common race format, a season championship series points system, a calendar, and quite frankly not much more. I did make the mistake of not getting enough people involved in the early days, and OCRA has tended to stay an organization run by a very few people for the benefit of quite a few.

I view CRAM as one of the premier regional sailing associations. Rather than being an association of local fleets, they are a highly mobile (gypsy) club, with a locality of the whole lower peninsula of Michigan. They have a large number of volunteers, a full slate of officers, their own equipment, and their own insurance. They “wander” around the state parks having regattas and parties with great success. Internally they are made up of a number of fleets. Those fleets can be one-design or Portsmouth. They have fleets for every body of sailors in the group. There is an I-20 fleet, an F-18 fleet, an I-17 fleet, etc.. If there is interest there could be a Hobie 16 fleet, a Hobie 20 fleet, a Hobie Wave fleet, or a Mystere 4.3 fleet. All it would take would be a few boats, and somebody willing to be fleet captain and lead the charge to building that fleet. I believe there is also a Portsmouth fleet for those who race 1 off designs or prefer handicap racing. And by having all these fleets work together they make things like an RC boat, and insurance affordable to all the members. (Remember you don’t need much more race committee to throw a 40 boat regatta than you do to throw a 5 boat regatta.)

I would also like to put in a plug for US Sailing’s on the water and on the beach insurance programs. US Sailing is with a new insurance carrier and they are excellent. Both the rates and the coverages have improved dramatically in the move from the old carrier to the new. If you haven’t looked at US Sailing’s insurance program lately, you need to look again.

Talk to the people out there in the independent regional sailing associations and look at what they've done. Then do whatever makes the most sense for your region, the personalities and demographics of your members and fleets, and have fun while promoting the sport of sailing.
Ohio Catamaran Racing Association

Page 2 of the newsletter is attached.

As a founding member of a new club in catamaran racing and sailing I would like to thank Hobie for their decision. I (we) look forward to joining the NAMSA and hope the results are a simple and organized regional and national schedule of events. I feel that following the US Sailing Divisions is a good idea because it will give us more creditibilty with them and will give us a framework for other multihull championships for women and youth (may I say that again, Youth!!) in addition to the Alter Cup. These are exciting times. Look at all the energy and ideas that Hobie's decision has created.


Jon Britt
Outer Banks Catamaran Club(OBXCC)

After following many of the fine posts on this and other related threads, I'd like to take a moment and apologize for letting my emotions get the best of my earlier comments!! I would also like to re-emphasize that my frustrations (and associated comments) were directed at the Hobie Corporation...and DEFINITELY NOT towards anyone choosing to sail a Hobie...It would be ludicrous for any of us to alienate ourselves from each other purely on the basis of what boat we choose to sail...we are a relatively small community of interest and need to work together as an entire community to promote this sport that we enjoy so much for the benefit of all!! Having said that, I second the motion that this could actually be the best thing that could have happened for us as Catamran sailors in that it does afford us an excellent motivation and opportunity to get a larger more inclusive organization (NAMSA???) off the ground....and I think that can only be good for Cat Sailing.

This weekend many of us from around the Midwest will be in Chicago with the HCA Div 10 Commodore, Jeff Rabidoux(who has publicly stated a desire to promote Catamaran sailing in all it's glorious forms...)and I look forward to very constructive debate on how we can use this opportunity to further Cat sailing for all of us!!!


Now.....can someone please hand me a tissue...sniff, sniff....
(AND..btw..I am NOT from the SouthEast...and I DO still own and sail my Hobie 18!!)

Joe

I think the non-Hobie cats should sail out to the start line like they own the water, which we all do anyway, finish the course with topless crew, loud obnoxious music, and a cooler full of good beer.

Hey, that's a good idea for every race.

Sounds like when times were hard, Hobie used the X fleet for the resuce (more $)

Now that some fleets have survived, thanks in part to afore mentioned fleets, they have said a rude, but steadfast, thank you.

Please tell me how the following scene is bad:

1 H-16s start (the RC and course is already set)
2 H-17s start....
3 H-18s start....
4 H-20s start....

whatever is left over, starts! They invite one to their regatta (hobie day) then say, you dont get your own start. Maybe one day will come (soon) that some local fleets will have to ask NAMSA (or any other athority) for a start.

Let them pay, then dont be polite or kind. As the other post said, "pay back is #@#"

so long,

To set the F18 record straight…

Hobie Cat Company USA has supported, and will continue to support, the NAF18 class and F18 racing as Hobie Cat France and Hobie Cat Australia support F18 racing in their regions. Hobie Cat encourages Tigers to race both formula and one design World Wide.

Don't get this confused with a completely unrelated one-design issue going on within the Hobie Class Association events.

The Hobie Companies (World Wide) and the Hobie Class Associations (World Wide) are not suggesting that Hobie sailors should not race where ever and with whomever they want. Hobie Cat understands that one design racing is but one part of the whole sailing experience...

I am sure that plenty of Hobie sailors have been, and will be, working NAF18 events in the future. Several Hobie sailors are on the board, right? Heck... even the Hobie President, Doug Skidmore, was working the weather mark boat at the Performance / NAF18 Nationals event (with Jack Young of Performance) one day last fall. Hobie Cat USA has offered to help run a NAF18 North Americans. Hobie Company / Hobie Sailors have also offered guidance in forming this class and Hobie Cat USA has organized some small amount of funding as well. I'd call that embracing the Formula 18 Class.

You can look at it this way... it's like some big family... Hobie has it's own kids and a bunch of nieces and nephews. They are all family, but can’t Hobie love its own kids best?

There is a time and a place for a family reunion… but there is also a time and a place to go home and hang with just your own kids.

Can you put a figure on the amount money you plan to contribute to the remaining Hobie Fleets to keep them viable as well as offset the costs of their points (Hobie Only) regattas?

In the 10 years I was involved with Hobie Fleet 11 we received 0 $ from Hobie and it's only been recently that we have received any items for giveaways. So I find it curious that now Hobie has all this love to give.

Regards,
David Ingram