Perhaps it’s only me, but the pink elephant of the 2005 sailing season, the infamous hobie edict, deserves some discussion on April Fools Day. The 2005 sailing season is getting underway and I think it’s appropriate to assess the outcome of the political changes initiated by the IHCA and NAHCA with respect to catamaran racing opportunities for all sailors.

It appears that all of the Hobie fleets and Regional cat sailing clubs from the Gulf Coast, Florida and up the east coast through Maryland have chosen to host open catamaran events while offering one design Hobie classes when appropriate. One new regional organization, The Eastern Multihull Sailing Association; EMSA was created to organize the racing season on the lower eastern seaboard. The Hobie fleets of Delaware and New Jersey area which form the core of Hobie Division 11 choose to restrict their events to Hobie only boats. The very successful, Sandy Hook Catamaran Club on the northern edge of Division 11 will host both Open and Hobie only events this year in serving their membership. The good news is that the impact on the catamaran sailors in these regions has been negligible because there are very few non hobie racing sailors in the New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania region. The Hobie fleets focus on Division 11 Hobie racing serves the Hobie 16, 17 and 18 fleets. The A class fleets are located at a few clubs and are self sufficient hosting small regattas. One club, Chesapeake Hobie Fleet 54 is on the border and they are holding their breath with respect to turnout for their popular Gunpowder Open Regatta in May. Sailors with Hobie 20’s and Tigers are faced with 2 boat or fewer turnouts at the Hobie division events without the presence of an open class to play with.

Proceeding north up through New England presents a slightly different story. Another new regional sailing association was created to coordinate and schedule racing in New England, The New England Catamaran Sailing Association or NECSA joins the Long Island Catamaran Association (LICSA) to coordinate the regional sailing scene. It appears that clever scheduling has allowed different clubs to host two Hobie only racing weekends while the non Hobie fleets compete at different regatta locations on those same weekends without conflicting. It would appear that sailors won’t loose any sailing opportunities due to the policy changes… (just a smaller party) and on the plus side they can train lots of RC personnel.

Proceeding westward, upstate New York and Ontario maintain a Hobie only regatta focus. Open catamaran clubs don’t seem to have organized in this region and regattas such as the Unlimited Regatta at Kingston may be looking for support from all sailors. Non Hobie sailors will miss out since the Rochester Open regatta changed course and opted to be Hobie only this year.

The Michigan and Wisconsin regions are very well organized due to the efforts of Rrgional sailing organizations Catamaran Racing Association of Michigan or CRAM and the Catamaran Racing Association of Wisconsin or CRAW. These clubs host open events and support one design fleets when possible. Two events appear to be off limits to non Hobies in the region, however a robust high quality active schedule is available for all of the region’s cat sailors. Continuing southward finds the Ohio Catamaran Racing association or OCRA which also supports open racing events.

So, the sailing scene east of the Mississippi River has been negatively impacted by the Hobie initiative. However, I don’t have any sense of the magnitude of the impact on catamaran racers in the upstate New York region. For the most part, the changes have all occurred on paper as clubs and regions have created new documentation for name changes, bank accounts and insurance purposes. Time will tell if the impact is truly negligible.

Respectfully

Mark Schneider

With the price of gas hitting all time highs… many sailors may just stay local this year. Sigh...

Not sure what has transpired west of the river… Anyone?

As concerns South TX & Louisiana, "Division 6", there is interesting dialog between a member & several NAHCA officers posted at :
http://maillist.ellinger.org/~catamaranws/~austin/
The thread is called "Response to HCA Membership Solicitation".

Any news is good news in catamaran sailing.In open events such as ours we had a great showing by John McKnight on a Hobie 20 against a lot of good competition.Sailors on the fence about dusting off there garaged cats might get the itch to come out again and participate.Hobie Cat's decision is one of self preservation of one design fleet racing. We all have a choice as to what we want to do,where we want to sail and what we want to sail in, so long as the enjoyment of sailing continues..........In a year or two we could see the demise again of exclusive one-design events..

In reply to Jim Casto

It looks like Hobie is following the same plan they used to force the Hobie Fleets to seperate from the MSA in the 80's. Based on that plan they will recruit new sailors, probably at nationals, to form a "recognized fleet" and division. The problem is, it's hard to find a wide eyed newbie these days.

Seperate topic - Are you coming down for drinks in the pool at HYC this year? The A's are already getting prep'ed. We are going to have 2 months of Wed Night Races at HYC starting tomarrow.

If that were to take place you might as well pack it in. Racing straight up will ALWAYS be the goal of racing sailors. Look at the F18 class. This class is a HUGE compromise, and is one of the main reasons it is popular! Handicap racing is NOT the future of our sport!

I support Hobie Corps desire to preserve and promote One-Design racing I just don't support their methods.

David Ingram

Ditto for me.

Dave, the way I interpret the comment from DYSC is that we may see the demise of Hobie one design racing (SMOD). I don't think this necessarily applies to straight-up racing in general, such as F18.

So I don't think we need conclude that the health of catamaran sailing in general is going to be deterrmined by the Hobie strategy (if that was your concern).

Mark.

Jim, Div 6 only covers Lake Charles/far SW in Louisiana.

As for the central Gulf, it has, and continues to be, mostly open class with NO extant Hobie fleets between Lake Chuck and Panama City, despite what the HCA insists (they still list fleets in New Orleans and Ocean Springs and they DO NOT exist...)

Nothing changes for us down here Central Gulf, with the possible exception of distaste for Hobie's methods of getting sailors under their umbrella.

Sea ya
tami
Vice Commodore, Coast Catamaran Club
Ocean Springs (Biloxi) Mississippi

And it is pretty obvious that the entire state of Florida is OPEN.
Rick

I sail a H-18 and am a member of CRAM. I dislike sailing portsmouth but with so few Hobie 18s around its tough to get a fleet, even at a "Hobie Regatta". I would love to get a F-18 but $$. (My wife states that if I spend that much it better have a motor & keep her dry). I will sail anywhere that I am welcome and has some good racing. That means that I will sail in OCRA, CRAM and Hobie Division 10. If you can, buy and race what everyone else is in your location. The choice of boat has a lot to do with your local dealer & their support of the local regattas.

The changes have had little effect in Div. 5 (Mountain States). In fact, Fleet 61 in Denver has grown by five or six members in the last few months. We had about 100 people at our spring party, and we get 35 to 45 boats at our two biggest regattas. According to Colorado State registration records, there are at least 900 Hobie owners in Colorado.

Definite negative effect in Northern California...

Really? I got the impression that besides a few minor instances, that the racing would remain Hobie up that'er way.

Our Fleet and a number of other Fleets in Division 16 have decided to go with the one-design approach because it's basically what everyone wants; to be able to test their skills against a sailor and not a boat. Of course, our decision was made easier since we have very few none-Hobie racers in our area, nothing near the competition in the mid-west or down in Florida.

If the numbers of non-Hobies in our area ever increases, I could see us changing our approach to racing. But right now, we're happy to just be on the water and racing one-design.

Wyatt

Wyatt,
Just out of curiosity, how do you deal with it if you have Hobies show up that do not have enough for a one-design class: Like if you get a Hobie 18, an 18SX, an 18 Magnum, a Hobie 17 and a Hobie 14, and maybe a 21 and maybe a Wave?

Mary:

Aside from two H-17s and one Miracle, we haven't had to deal with any other designs yet. The open race for those three were run portsmouth. We're kind of lucky that we have almost a dozen H18s in our area, and the magnums just take their wings off. The two TheMightyHobie18 SX in our area have decided to work the race committee and not race themselves.

We've talked about all the possibilities, but we haven't had to do anything yet. I guess one possibility is to list the registrants on our website so people could see what kind of boats will be entered.

I'll tell you more in July!

Wyatt

Wyatt,
Part of the reason I asked is that I heard a rumor that one of the divisions up in that area (I don't know whether it was yours) plans to not actively discourage participation but also not to actively encourage it for Hobies that do not have enough boats for a one-design fleet.

If that is true, I think that is a very unfortunate attitude designed to hasten the demise of the smaller classes under the Hobie umbrella -- and also reduce the number of Hobie sailors in general.

I have been saying for years that there should be individual class associations for the various Hobie classes under the overall umbrella of the Hobie Class Association, so each class can have people working on building their own class of boat, both nationally and locally, and getting more attendance at regattas so they CAN get enough boats for one-design fleets.

But lacking that, I think that at the very least ALL Hobies of whatever type (even if they have a boat that is not being built any more) should feel welcome to attend any Hobie regatta and know that they will be able to race somehow. If the people with dead or dying classes feel welcome to come to regattas, they will either work harder to get more of their kind to come, too, OR they may decide to give up on their class and buy one of the boats that do have active racing fleets. Either way, at least you will still be welcoming them and keeping them on the water.

As it is, since the Hobie Class has said it will not allow an open class, it makes it sound like they will not allow an open class, period, even if it is for Hobies. Perhaps that should be clarified so Hobies without enough for a fleet will not stay home.

Mark,

You very well may be correct and I may have read DSYC's post wrong, but I do know several sailors that truely believe open/handicap sailing is better than OD or Formula. We just had a heated debate on another forum about OD/Formula vs. open. There has also been serveral threads here dedicated to the subject.

Dave

Wyatt

The Rochester regatta was an open regatta and the years I attended had 20+ boats in the open class. (Great event!) What happened to them or will happen to them in your region?

Mark

Mark - last year, there were only 4 non-Hobies at the Rochester regatta. Out of about 60 boats.

There is an open multihull event at Canadaigua Yacht Club in mid-September should they want to go to a major event.