Hey Darryl -

What handicap system do y'all use?

Since nobody from the Southwest U.S. has chimed in yet, I just thought I would add to Mark's thread that probably the Hobie edict did not affect some of those areas.

Down in Arizona they seem to have gotten it figured out a long time ago. They have Hobie Fleet 66 in Phoenix and Hobie Fleet 514 in Tucson and they have Multihull Fleet 42 in the Phoenix area, which organized in 1980 and is open to all cats.

The Hobie fleets do some events on their own, and Fleet 42 does some events on its own, but they also all do a lot of events together.

I don't know what the Hobie fleets there are like now, but when we were in that area back in the early '90's, the Phoenix and Tucson fleets were among the (if not THE) biggest in the country.

Anyway, those three fleets seem to have a really good relationship which allows the Hobie fleets to be exclusionary as far as their own fleets but there is an optional home for the non-Hobies -- and everybody gets along together and plays together and do charity events together, etc.

They all tend to go to the same lakes, and they all do their major regattas down in Mexico on the Sea of Cortez.

I guess when you are sailors living in the desert, you tend to flock together no matter what you sail -- like all sorts of animals ending up at the same watering holes, and sharing.

As a long time cat sailor and long time lurker on this site, I wanted to give my history on one design vs open class. Long ago, when Hobie 16's ruled the world, you either worked your way up through "C" fleet to "B" fleet then got your butt handed to you in "A" fleet, or you learned to play golf. Working you way thru the fleets meant being on time for starts, knowing the right of of the line, which side of the course was favored, what the tide was doing, staying for the whole regatta, ect. To me, open class was for people who liked to tinker, play with their boats on the beach, complain about how someone else's boat performs better in certain conditions, ect. I have to agree with Mary, et al. that formula/onedesign eliminates all those excuses and promotes what the sport is supposed to be all about.

There is a "yardstick" handicapping system used almost universally here John, maintained by the Victorian Yachting Council, known as the Victorian Yachting Council Yardstick, shortened to VYC YS. It is based on multiple results from all over Australia from regattas, club races, etc, on an ongoing update “back calculation” from those results. As it encompasses, most, if not all classes racing, no matter where and when and through every imaginable sailing condition, as long as there is this regular accurate reporting of comparative results between different classes, then the resulting allocated performance “yardsticks” of every class compared to each other, is very accurate.
It seems to have worked well here for many many years, and it means that it doesn’t matter where you want to go to sail at any regatta, you know exactly what your “handicap will be and what every other boat sailing at that regatta will be as well. It encourages boats of different design, size etc, to compete against each other on the course as regardless of where you finish over the line, you know how you sailed against every other boat on the water. It enables you to compete against a much larger boat and if, for example you had sailed up to your yardstick and you had still finished five minutes over the line behind that larger/faster boat BUT he had not sailed to his yardstick, the results will show that you had out sailed him and won, on yardstick.
Similar to many handicapping systems world wide, but it is a system that works to perfection and everyone seems happy with it (no small feat when dealing with sailors?)

"Upstate New York. Some non hobie sailors cannot participate in regattas that they previously supported in the New York Region.
The Shark one design fleet may loose out on some racing since other clubs don't reciprocate and host them any longer
Hobie sailors without one design fleets race in a smaller Hobie open"

Mark: It's been my experience for the last twenty years that the sharks don't travel to beaches anymore. They have a few shark Regattas that they go to, but I haven't seem them away from their home base (Canandaigua Yacht Club) in many years. The boats don't beach-launch well.

We seem to be a one-design state. There are a few Nacras and Mystere's around, but they knew what they were buying at the time; they were always going to be in smaller open classes if they were going to race. The only exception in New York State was the Canandaigua Yacht Club's September Regatta which attracted about seventy boats at the season's end. It's more of a "farewell to Summer" Regatta, then a trophy Regatta. Very well run, and a lot of fun.

Wyatt

Open sailing is NOT going to grow the sport, or it hasn't for the last 10 years I've been involved with multihull racing. Open racing has it's place and purpose, but to trade straight up racing for numbers, just isn't worth it to me. If you have to beat someone by 5 minutes to win... you're no longer racing them you're racing the clock and that aint racing. If I wanted to race like that I'd get a lead mine with a sweetheart PHRF rating. That way I could enjoy my sandwich and a cool **** while I stomp the guy 30 minutes in front of me.

If you want to attract the mono guys we better have strong OD/Formula racing to offer them. Why else would they leave the comfort of their own open class to sail multihulls. And don't tell me it's because multi's are fast, sexy and fun, if that was all it took we would have converted the mono guys in the 70's!

Open racing is NOT our future!

Dave

I can say you are accurate for the gulf coast, and would only add that I am going to see if we can form an F20 class to include hobie 20 w/spin, N6.0 w/spin, I20, and Tornados,Etc. at Redfish Reach as the dead horse said, class racing is the best kind of racing. However selling your beloved boat to buy the Fad boat is not a great option.

I'll strongly disagree on open racing not growing the sport. Our open class club has grown significantly over the last couple of years, with quite a few people being new to cats or sailing. Some of those new to cats have had mono background, some of it one-design. The fact that they could buy a used boat, any used boat, to figure things out before spending lots on something newer has been key to their decision to get involved in the first place. If they had to buy a certain boat to race in one-design, well a portion of them wouldn't be sailing with us. While people have from time to time discussed dismay at ratings, nobody to my knowledge has left the Fleet because we race open. Comments on the positive nature of what we do relate to the fact that as a group we are friendly and helpful to all. Comments from the former one-design mono sailors mention the closed-off nature of the one-design world where nobody talks or shares their little nth-degree speed secret as being among the reasons they gave up racing in those venues.

From our success has sprung the local A-Cat scene, which is also growing leaps and bounds. A good portion of those sailors came from our Fleet. And, most of them have not given up the Tuesday night open racing, they just do it in addition to the A-Cat regattas. The A-Cats that don't participate are more dismayed with our racing being more mini-distance format than strict up and downwind.

As people from our club have moved to the A-Cat, we are filling in new members right behind them - looks like 5 new teams this year. And of the ones that moved to A-Cats, most are still members of WRCRA, and as mentioned above they still race with us even though their boats may be stored at a different club. So, we're growing and growing the sport in our area, and we're open class all the way.

As for monos - by far the biggest participation in mono racing on the Bay is PHRF weeknight races, not one-design. Getting these people to switch is mostly a matter of exposure to multihulls. Most are died in the wool mono people, and the issue of one design or handicap is meaningless for them to switch to multis or not.

That having been said, I believe the A-Cat is the perfect weapon in the fight switch mono dinghy sailors to cats. Its performance and agility is just the thing for that purpose, and yes it's heads up racing as well. As much as I know that the Hobie-16 is a great one-design and recreational boat, lots of mono sailors have bad memories of having sailed on one at one time or another. You'll hear stories of horrible tacking and capsizing and the like. These people will never move to any class that they associate with that, whether it's one design or handicap. They'll swear that cats can't go upwind or stay upright.

So, what grows the sport? Open? One Design? I say fixating on that question is killing the sport. Most of that conversation revolves around moving the existing participants into one method or another. There's room for both. What will grow the sport is forming clubs with the right frame of mind designed to bring new members in as old members stay or move on. Clubs that are designed to introduce new blood to sailing and to cats.

So, again, yes open racing has grown the sport, and even kept it from ceasing to exist in some areas. Is it the perfect form or racing? Probably not, but all things have their drawbacks, and what matters is the question or whether the merits outweigh the drawbacks for the people involved.

Rant mode off...

Open class has been the foundation of beach-cat racing since it started almost 50 years ago, and it is STILL the foundation. If the past is any predictor of the future, open class will always be the foundation.

Along the way one-design classes (and formula classes) spring up. Some survive and some die. But I think open class racing will always survive.

We would not have a fleet in Miami now if we had not formed an open club that welcomes all classes of cats.

Yes I totally agree that OPEN racing has HELPED the sport. In many areas its either open racing or none at all. And you certainly aren't going to attract new members when there is nothing going on! Open racing is just a fact of life for a lot of people who don't have a choice so stop bashing it guys.