YouthSailing, the RYA and Catamarans

Originally posted by Jon Emmett

   But most or all of the monos in the RYA scheme were around long before the RYA had any such scheme. And even countries that have much weaker training schemes have similar monos and few or no junior cat. So the RYA involvement surely is not the factor that has lead to the creation of several hugely successful junior/youth monos and no really successful junior/youth cats.

How does anyone know there's no market for a Junior/Youth cat? And why isn't there such a market? Surely the gf and I aren't the only cat sailors who have kids!

Sure, you can train kids in monos, but as Adrian points out then many of them will stay in monos. Sure, you can train kids in their parent's cats but many of them want to be sailing with other kids. 

Sure, some cat sailors are involved in training on monos - but how is the RYA going to know how much they are contributing if there is no organised group? Perhaps the cat sailors involved in training could band together in a loose organisation, maybe just an email group, so they can make their voice known. The petition had flaws because several people have gone on record as saying they signed it repeatedly under different guises, and also who knows how many of the people will sign a name but just sit back and expect other people to train kids for them?

Surely there is room to trial a couple of options to actually train kids from an early age. One or more manufacturers could combine to create a Formula or "white boat" kid's cat (or two; Junior and Youth). An association could select an existing boat and use it as is. Or modify one - say a Sprint with a smaller main and sailed two up by under 16s?

It's been tried in other areas of sailing and it is successful and rewarding, even with active opposition from the national authority. 