Regarding follow up in media..

I have been responsible for sending reports and results to our local newspaper for the fleet. They always publish the results, but usually edits the report to the unrecognizable. They also use our pictures, if the quality is decent and they have room after spending four color large format images on football..

Having results and reports published should not be a problem, but somebody have to write them and submit them. It usually is a smart move to have one person responsible for this.

I think I disagree (sometimes disagree strongly) with the idea's proposed about promoting and growing the sport.

Naturally taking interested people along is excellent. But the idea's of malls and boat builder sponsor deals seem to me to be to improbably to work. Actually can anyone name a single boat builder that sponsors an activity. Beneteau, Catalina, Hobie (excluding their own events), etc ? Companies that sponsor are typcially big guys like banks (ING , ABN-AMRO, Banque Populair), housing agencies (Europe), ensurreance companies (Groupama) and multinationals like photofilm, lock or tool makers (Fuji-colour, Assa Abbloy, Scania). The list is endless, KingFisher, B&Q Castorama. Even large engineering firms like. Brunel Sunergy (whitbread) and Skilled engineering (18 foot skiffs).

Moreso, if we demand sponsorship deals from boatdealers we implicetely force them to raise prices of their products. So what we win on one side we loose on the other. This is not smart policy

Point one is, We are looking at the wrong companies for sponsor deals.

Another issue is that we think of ourselfs as enjoying a product that is too special and trying to market it to normal folk. First normal folk will never get into sailing. It is and will be to a larger extend an elitist sport. Only really suitable to a portion of the population. BUT, so too are high powered motorcycles. And still we have various very succesful motorcycle companies and faltering cat building companies. The best we can do is focus fully on our special nature and use that to descriminate ourselfs from all the other life style products efforts out there.

Than I think we are making a mistake by thinking we can win much by using mainstream promotion and advertising. We set ourselfs up for failure if we try to win the sexappeal angle from the wave surfers, the manliness angle from the motorcycles and the rebelious angle from the rockstars and underground scene. Sailing in general must work it own angle. Succes and recognition of greatness by endureance, mental stamina and knowing when to attack and duck while dancing with the twin grizzly bear called sea and weather. This sport is about honing your mentality and character as much as it is about getting a kick out of flying hull in 20 and at 20 knots.

Point : First look at what this sport really is, and what others aren't, and fully focus to that. You will not attract large portions of general folk but you'll win large portion of the people who were already so dispositioned and your imagine in general will be clearly recognisable and different from the others.


Also we just have to much bickering going on inside our seen. How many OD wave surf competions do we see, How many OD motorcycle races, how many OD iron man competitions (using the same bikes or kayaks) etc etc. In general we spend more time and effort to infighting than growing the sport together and YES the large cat companies are to blame disproportionally here. I mean how stupid is it to have a 3 boat nationals over a 30 boat combined nationals ? And yes one big builder choose to support this stupidity as recently as 2004. The anual fight over which boats get chosen to do the Worrell like races and Alter cup are more examples of it.

Lets face it guys paper, magazine and readers want to see companies slugging it out on the race course and see underdogs stuff up big guys with a home made contraption. We have however BANNED all that to favour the "exiting spectacle" wether mr and ms Brown win over mr and ms Blueberry. Also the public wants to hear about secret wapon number 1 and coutermeasure number 10. There is a reason why Open 60 ORMA and Open format vendee Globe and Volvo ocean races get big publicity and Hobie 16 worlds DON'T. It is called analyses of new technics, new design features and endless talk of their potential. We can all relate to things like that but not to the names of skippers who really 99% of the broader community has heard about. Also take the Race ! Were we supporting a particular boat because Grant Dalton was sailing it or the Bruno Peyron ! Now we supported particular baot because we were Americans (Playstatation) or non-Americans (Other boats) , because we supported the underdog (The Polish entre with Roman Paske) or because we were French. This sort of rivalry fills pages and catches the imagination. How Yves Parlier broke his carbon mast in the southern ocean, dragged it on board singlehandedly, jury rigged it and sailed to new zealand and repaired it building tools and an oven from cannibilized parts. How does that compare to make a call to Hobie Cat about them sending over a new certificed but outdated alu OD mast ?

Point : Stop the infighting and start working together (I know, hell freezes over first) and understand what earns respect and aw at a greater audience.


I can go on and on, but honestly I feel like wasting my precisious free time here. The answer and solutions have been available for many years now and examples in other sport are so too. However this was never the problem of the cat community.

Our problem is that we can get NAMSA of the ground, that we can't make the US Inter-18 and Tigers fit the F-18 rules that brought them about. Our problem is that we all yell that something should be done, but when the sleeves need to be pulled up and the elbows need to be greased, then suddenly nobody is around, we all grow instanious amnesia or can't accept that you can't an omelette with out breaking some eggs. Actually the way the NMBR rating system fares will be a great test case. Because if that fails than you can better give it up completely as then it will proven beyond a doubt that cat sailors are cheap, loud and lazy. They won't pay high prizes for top boats, They will yell, complain and give advice about everything but do nothing even when better policies, programs, systems and setups only needed a little support to make it.

I'm sure this is a big pill to swallow down but I think it needed to be said. I've been involved in the various area's of cat sailing over the last years, pretty much in continious fashion since 1999 and I've seen many many examples to support such a gloomy take on the situation.

I also see the solutions but for that we (I) need a committed and dedicated group of independent minded cat sailors that are willing to put in some effort. With such a group we can accurately target a few problem points and force solutions. So eventually the choice is a simple one. Do you want to be part of it or just remain as most of us were for over a decade.

Wouter

/snicker

You got that one right, Wouter.

What is "reasonably affordable". I am not convinced that catamaran sales are very price sensitive.

Firstly who buys the new cats. I think a large percentage goes to holiday companies. When you look at price per head a cat is already quite competitive. One of the most popular boats in the world is the Laser and that costs around $5000 per head. I don't think price is the big issue.

Catamarans have poor sales compared to almost every other established water sports.

Jet skis cost a bomb $5000 + $50/hour. But outsell sail boats 15 to 1, that is because they are easy to use.

It is apparent that the big sellers are the recreational boats, why do we think that is the case, is it the price? I don't think so, I think it has more to do with ease of use. You need to make it as easy as possible for people to start sailing, and Cats aren't. We need boats that are fast but easy to sail, are safe to take the family out on, and are quick to set up. The answer to the marketing problem is accessibility, accessibility and accessibility.

Gareth

Wouter,
I thought catamaran sailing was booming in Europe. So are you talking about Europe, or the United States? The big beach-cat boom in Europe did not even begin until catamaran sailing in the United States was in serious decline. Maybe our present is your future.

Good post Wouter.

Its a culture problem.

But even if there will never be mass public interest for actually sailing catamaran, there could be interest for the things around the sea universe like the maritime culture in general which includes sailing.
I have always been chocked to see the way most of the people behave with the sea: like a big disneyland.
Look at the last Hobie calendar: it says that the sea is the biggest playground. No, I don't agree.
Sea is a lot more than that. 2/3 of the planet and a tons of things going with it. Sea deserve and needs respect, knowledge and education.
Only then, you understand what you are doing and really enjoy it.

It does not match with the current fast-food/instant-rewarding trend at all.

In answer to GROB's post, in order to make beach cats easy to set up and use, maybe manufacturers should include with every boat a simple, no-muscle, mast-raising system so even a woman or a child can raise the mast alone. Also, make sure sails are easy to get up and down and have a simple halyard-lock system that is easy to attach and detach, both off and on the water.

Surely we have the mechanical technology to make these things happen.

This is exactly what i think the sport needs. By the way these ideas aren't entirely mine, I first heard them in an interview with one of the top guys at Escape boats (Johnsons watercarft).

Gareth

As with any industry, Sail Boat Manufacturers rely on support from consumer groups to promote and sell their products. Just look at any sports product. Where would Nike sales be without the NBA? or Olympics?

Vanguard has done a great job by supporting US SAILING, and every Sailing Program in the Country, at the youth, high school, and collegiate level. They do this by serving on committees, volunteer programs, and working with every program in our sport.

At Sail Sand Point, Seattle's Community Sailing Center, www.sailsandpoint.org, we just ordered several new Vanguard Sailboats for our expanding programs.

By working with several groups, we now have five Hobie Waves, all donated. See the following link http://www.sailsandpoint.org/index.php?pg_id=113. The Waves are used in our classes and are the most popular boat in our Open Sailing programs. We are also continuing the US SAILING "Fast and Fun" free outreach sailing programs with our own Waves, and local volunteers.

To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, "Ask not what your Country (Sailing) can do for you, but you can do for your Country (Sailing)". Actions speak louder that words.

Caleb Tarleton

It's not ALL doom and gloom guys... not to say it can't be done bigger or better, but we are selling more boats, we are getting more publicity. For Hobie Cat and the HCA's part, we are working to make things better and grow the sport. We are seeing people come back from resorts and buy boats. We are trying to make the products more user freindly. We sell several mast stepping systems, the 21 Sport cruiser came standard with one, the Wave is soo easy and the Bravo is a snap as it is. We ARE advertising in major and regional magazines. We are promoting to the existing mono sailors. We are getting TV and Movie time. We have a full time promotions and marketing staff again. We are working to make our products more exciting looking. The HCA has created a new position to hunt for major sponsorship money. Many posts were right about the cost of this type of endeavor, we (Hobie Cat and the HCA) cannot do it alone. We need to involve BIG money and are going after it.

I will be sure to direct our marketing guys to review these posts for any additional viable ideas.

Now, back to vacation...

Yeah - the percentage is low which means we need to reach more people. My logic is as follows: read about cats in the paper, see it on the news....visit resort and the previous identification of the capabilites is incentive to try it. Try it, like it, and a small percentage might get into it when they get home (racers or non-racers).

Let me make my point another way: Shuffleboard. How many of you have taken any time to actually play it? It's at all these resorts right? I see the empty courts all the time but I have never have stepped foot on one. What if the US Shuffleboard championships were held in your backyard and you saw it on the news where they explained the basics and showed how popular it was (among these nut jobs that traveled half way across the country to be there). NOW go to that resort with the empty shuffleboard court (?)...you want to give it a 10 minute try next time you're at the resort now don't you? This is what publicity does.

The percentage of those that sustain in the sport through such channels is admitedly small - but again, you can't expect to bring people (especially non-sailors) into the sport unless they've heard about it. This is a simple concept.

Mary, sounds like the Hobie Wave to me. Our seven to ten year old students have no problem rigging, launching, and retrieving our Hobie Waves at Sail Sand Point. The boats are stored, mast up on the ground, adjacent to the dock. They learn to move the boat on Cat Trax, across the ramp to the dock, rig the boat and launch, all without help of the instructors.

Caleb Tarleton

Jake

I think the only way I'd get into shuffle board is if the sticks were fire engine red carbon fiber with cool graphics (like today's tennis raquets) and the courts were maple plank, and young people were doing it as a sport. But the image I get of shuffle board is the one I see almost every day. Old folks game. Not for the young.

Image has a huge amount to do with it.

Jake, our experience with the "Fast and Fun" program over the last three years has been very positive. See http://www.ussailing.org/multihull/fast&fun.htm. Note the reports and pictures from the events.

It is a little hard to quanitify in actual new sailors, but every one that has taken part from the volunteers to the participating Outreach Groups have all had a great time.

We will continue this program with our own boats from Sail Sand Point. US SAILING no longer has the trailer and equipment that toured the country. It is now up to the local Sailor Clubs, Fleets and Schools to carry on this excellent program.

Caleb Tarleton

Hello all,
I am not arguing with your point about PR, marketing etc etc. I think that is the easy part! The problem is two fold. Ease of Use... and Ease of access to the water.

Matt's point that Hobie has really made the rotomold boats simple and easy to set up quite true. But that does not solve the problem either. They still weigh more then most people can easily move around and they don't fit in the garage well and so the neighbors will complain. Couple the weight with the work it takes to get the boat to water and the hassle factor is quite large.

EG. I have 3 new Hobie's at my club (mast up and 20 yards from the water). (Wave, Getaway and a Bravo)... the owners WERE really gungho...At the end of the season.... you never saw them. I predict the boats remain at the club for one more season before the owners decide that the costs don't match up to the fun factor and they are gone.

Now compare the effort needed to go sailing off the trailer at a public launch with that needed to launch a speedboat or a pair of jetskis. 10 minutes versus 45 minutes. (That 45 minutes in the launch area can be a big problem if the powerboaters are waiting for you to get in and go!) Then you have the stress factor of sailing out the channel with the powerboats coming and going. Alternatively, you can drag the boat 300 yards across soft sand to the water from the small boat launch (providing that you are in the park by 10 AM. (Even with wheels… its work!) Bottom line... cat sailing is not gonna happen under these circumstances!

You need to solve the entire problem or your marketing dollars are simply flushed!

So, It's not the marketing and it's not the boat....

The problem is you are targeting a small group of people who potentially enjoy sailing a WET fast ride versus sailing a dry boat or simply power boating. (So the pool of people is small) This is made all the worse by how difficult it is to get to the water via public access routes.

Finally there are other issues that speak to racing participation. Themajority of cat clubs exist on paper. We have no physical presence that anyone could find! We appear for one weekend a year at a site and that's it. We are virtually invisible... How do you even find us ... Thank god for the internet or the community of racers would have been long gone. Oh! and to make matters even worse we form our own organizations and don't integrate into the existing sailing organizations.

Caleb points to the success his club has enjoyed. The essential factors are 1) A facility to work out of .... (Costs you significant $$$ to support) 2) Elbow grease to support the sailing programs at the club.... (Costs you time that's not racing). I agree with his solution to the problem.

Finally, speaking for myself, How much interest is there REALLY among the racing sailors to participate in growing the activity of recreational sailing? I have taken enough people that I don't personally know on sailboat rides so they could experience catamaran sailing... What a pain in the butt! It better that they go to vendors who take them cruising on the bay then waste my time! The club activities that will yield good results are those that will take an interested newbie (go sailing day) and support their sustained participation (lessons or some such)

There... got that off my chest... now if only the chest cold would do the same.

Happy New Year
Mark

49-ers and 29-ers are more difficult to sail than cats and these two classes went through a growth that only the F18 class can measure itself too.


Wouter

Really people, do you think this is the solution ?

For years, we have had carbon A-cat masts and lightweight alu mast that put shame to the 118 KG have Wave and its comparably weighted mast and the total effect is zilch.

First thing we here is : "Gee, those carbon masts are expensive" and the second point is that I really doubt that we would see any growth in the sport is all Hobie 16 masts were replaced by the CHEAPER and superior Taipan 4.9 that weight less.

Pardon me please for my directness but this is silly. Nobody buys a Yamaha ZZR1100 top of the line motorcycle because its fuel tank cap is so easy to undo.

Wouter

Sure the people you take sailing don't run out and buy a boat, thats an expensive investment for something you tried once. The average person simply cannot afford a new boat, its like buying another car. So someone is gonna say "there are tons of used boats out there" well, unless you know where to look, your gonna have a hard time finding a used boat that isn't delapadated and incomplete. And when your new to the sport you don't know what your looking for to make a boat complete. I'm sorry, but if I'm just getting into any new hobby/sport, I am not gonna be looking to buy a bran new item. I'm gonna try to find a used one, in OK condition for a beginner.

So say I go to club med, I try out the hobie wave, and I think its the greatest thing since granular salt. Well when I get home, the only place I know to look for anything like it is hobiecat.com Well I can get dealer info there, thats fine, but then I check prices, and I get a reality check, then I realize that I probably have to have it shipped, another bummer. And I just don't know where to look for used items like boats, and if I do, I have little idea if what I'm buying is worth it.


Finally on to my proposal. Manufactures, or retailers should do trade ins and deal oin used boats. Just like car dealerships. you can get a used boat, that the dealership has gone over and found to be in working condition, and when you are ready, you can trade it in for a newer, faster boat, and someone else can get into the sport without buying something bran new. I think that the way to get people into the sport is to get the publicity, but then publisize a way to get into a less expensive used first boat. Cause like I said, it would take a WHOLE LOT to get me into a sport where its hard to find anythign but new boats.

Not directly related to the thread- but from a news media perspective sailing fraternities rarely communicate - if at all.

In 20 years as a radio news director up and down the Australian east coast I counted maybe 20 media releases or had phone/fax contact from local sailing clubs or groups. When it came to news/sports coverage I went first to local football/soccer/cricket codes because they consistently supplied info and good spokespeople. The only time sailing rated a mention was when I was contacted by (a) the Sydney to Hobart race PR team to report on local competitors in the event,(b) if the 18 foot skiffs passed through as part of a national televised race series or (c)if there was a combined well-organised sports carnival for the whole region. Sailing would be mentioned in passing but other mainstream sports would get the coverage and the overall focus.

If I was contacted by a local club I provided good pre- publicity, but it was then very rare to get coverage during or after the racing. I resorted to chasing clubs to get event info to provide an alternative to ad-nauseum football coverage but gave up in the end through lack of time. If we had a local winner in the state or national cat titles you might possibly see them once in the local paper and on a TV news bulletin. Sadly radio didn't rate a mention.

There is a huge amount of fax/email going to newspaper sports journalists daily, but they are usually only interested in servicing mainstream sporting networks because they consistently get stories out of them.

Any sailing media release has got to be riveting from the first word to avoid getting filed in the waste bin.


Qb2

I belong to Rhode Island Fleet 448. Our local dealer, Megrew's Boats, gives us space at the annual Boat Show, and we try to staff it with fleet members. We usually have two boats, photo albums of events, and if we're lucky some video. I think many of us campaign pretty hard for folks to come out and try the sport. We push both "fun sailing" and racing. I have only manned the booth once, but loved having a pulpit to preach from, and I think at least a few people actually showed up the next season to try it. Many more try it than stick with it or by boats. Our fleet does manage to keep bringing in new blood, though most buy used boats to start off. My friend Bev, has a local cable access show, and has had one all about cat sailing. This year she couldn't line up people to come and talk about it on the show. I think that would be a great way to interest people, especially if there was some good video footage. Anyone have some they'd let us use? That Spitfire vid is the kind of stuff we need. Matt is there any video from the 16 Worlds we can use at the Boat Show, or on Bev's show? We'll get it out there for you if you give us the chance!