YouthSailing, the RYA and Catamarans

TornadoAlive,

Thank you for making this point.  Many people concieve that the cost of a boat is what is expensive in an Olympic campaign.  It is the campaign itself that is expensive.  There are inherent costs to some classes over others that do increase the cost, Tornados, Stars, Ynlings amongst them.  Each of these boats in race configuration are expensive, but a Laser from this campaign will be replaced once if not twicw prior to the next campaign.  Ask Laser sailors about spending days sorting through hulls, masts, booms, rudders, sails and daggerboards to find the best out of maybe 100 boats.  I have witnessed this process before with a group of top sailors doing just this.  If you buy a marstrom tornado, that is what you get.  You do not go over and sort through boats looking for the right one.  You buy one, buy spare blades and so-on and Goran sends you one.  An active life for a racing torando is 8-12 years.  I do not know what it is for a Star.

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Gael

The RYA will state no doubt that cat sailors have done nothing to help themselves through lack of training etc. Members of this forum will counter that with examples of training given by class associations and clubs. Training should not just be for the elite. The RYA has kept quiet about various budgets it has available for class associations do do training, Money it has no doubt, (IMO), used in other ways.

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In some ways cat-sailors have done this to themselves.  We have a great thread on this topic running on catsailor.com.  One of the issues that needs to be dealt with is a clear path to the olympics on catamarans.  Entry level: F12, Hobie Wave, Misty or a similar vehicle, Mid Level, Hobie 16, SL16, F16, Top Level F18, Hobie Tiger, FX-One, A-Class, to Tornado or other Olympic multihull.  Consistant sailor-parent invovlement in youth development.  Finding builder, corporate sponser, backing, investment and development.  In the US a builder such as Vanguard that has plenty of experience with this type of development on the monohull side of things with boats such as the 420, Laser and FJ.  Reg White and his company which I believe to be Stealth marine would be a good candidate for being approached.  So it goes back to catsailors getting together, finding a common voice and getting the youth program coordinated on a worldwide basis so that organizations such USSailing and the RYA cannot state that the infrastructure, training and development do not exist.  So speak up, get involved and put your action where your mouth is.  If not you will be pushed aside and catsailing in the Olympics will dissappear.  If not in 2012 it will be gone by 2016.  It is now a put-up or shut-up issue and the time to put-up is now!  Thank you for the forum in which to speak.

This is the perveding issue that needs to be addressed.  A clear path, a clear progression, one that is bought into worldwide.  Big problem, big issue, but it can be tackled by all of us "small individuals" banding together to make it happen.

tom