YouthSailing, the RYA and Catamarans

Come on Jim tell us which bit?

fact RYA want to drop Youth cats

fact RYA is not supporting a multihull in 2012

IMO in doesnt take Einstein to work out that the 2 are linked, by removing one of the feeder systems to the other it will starve the other.

Before this becomes all out war could I quietly suggest that the cat sailing community sits down and carefully takes a look at what the RYA have proposed and perhaps more importantly did NOT propose.

As JimC points out the petition, even in its edited form, is incorrect and misleading.  He is not playing semantics (Stuart O) but pointing out that two of the 'facts' in the original petition are clearly wrong.

1) The RYA are not seeking "to remove the catamaran as an Olympic boat for 2012."  (The edit added at the end of the petition in an attempt to clarify this is not clear enough - you should have changed the original wording).  The petition, even in it's revised form, is still misleading.  Just read the comments added AFTER the edit.  From these you will see that the majority of those signing have yet to work out that the RYA are not asking for catamarans to be removed from the Olympics.

2)  The RYA did NOT make these submissions "without any consultation with the sailing community".   As JimC points out the RYA followed it's usual proceedure in preparing these submissions, as it did with all other submissions to the ISAF conference.  As pointed out by several others in this forum thread, the RYA has a well established system of committees with representations from the sailing community being allowed at many stages.  If Cat sailors don't feel represented please go and join the party.  i.e. join the RYA and volunteer to get on some of the committees or get yourself elected to RYA Council. 

Cat sailors, please get your house in order before your meeting with the RYA on 8 October.   The RYA are, in many peoples eyes, the most successful National Authority of any sport.  You may not agree with their actions, but please make sure you are disagreeing with the facts of the case, not a misleading set of inaccuracies.

We now have a situation where over 1000 people have signed a petition which does not stand up to close scrutiny and the Cat sailing community seem to believe that the RYA are trying to destroy them.  All this is based on circulation of incorrect and misleading information.  What a mess!

Good luck on October 8th but please stick to the facts not prejudices or rumours.

(By the way I speak as a PR professional who regularly writes press releases, consultation text and other words that MUST be factually correct.  I would have lost my job if I'd been responsible for publishing the misleading and factually incorrect words in either the original or edited petition.)