us sailing survey

Karl,

I had the exact same thoughts. Everywhere I could mark

other

where it came to

what type of sailing do you do

I did to show my displeasure.

That's what I did too. But I think Gary needs to hear from us about this.

WTF...I didn't even get the email!!!

dont be to

nice

If you don't do it today, it won't happen. You'll get over being p.o.'d and go on with your life.

Start your response right here right now. I'll chip in my .02 if you allow it. Maybe I already did that?

And I agree with all of you and answered the survey in the same way.

A question I'd like to ask is,

Why are you asking about the Olympics? We aren't allowed to participate. Were you even aware?

BTW catsailor was not named in the survey as a source of informtion. SA was.

My e-mail sent to garyjobson@ussailing.org :

Mr Jobson:

My name is Karl Langefeld and I have been a sailor all my life, I grew up in a junior program out of the Shrewsbury Sailing and Yacht Club in NJ and went on to be a collegiate sailor at the University of South Florida. After college, I spent years sailing all sorts of different boats from lasers to off-shore race boats. All through this time, I have also been an active beachcat sailor. I currently own and campaign a Formula 18 catamaran, one of the biggest catamaran fleets in the world. Last year, I was honored to be selected to compete in US Sailings Multihull Championship, the Alter Cup.

I have been a member of US Sailing for several years and have always beat the drum for my fellow sailors to join US Sailing. Many in the beachcat community have been reluctant to do so, feeling that beachcats do not receive recognition or support from US Sailing. I have always felt that sailing was bigger than just the fleets I was sailing in and used that as my argument for others to join. Race official training, youth development, providing the rules we race under, etc. This was my argument.

Yesterday, I received an online survey from US Sailing and took a couple minutes this morning to complete it. Upon completion of the survey, I was extremely disappointed that beachcats and multihulls were left off the survey completely. I could only check

Other

as the type of sailing that I am involved in. In addition, I could only check

Other

in regards to media sources used as all beachcat sites and publications were left out (if you are unaware please check www.catsailor.com as this is the largest of the media outlets for beachcat sailors). I can only assume that surveys of this type are used by US Sailing as a tool to determine the allocation of resources. If beachcats are not included, how can you determine what resources to allocate?

Sincerely

Karl Langefeld
US Sailing member #408203P

The survey should have only one heading:
Sail Boat Type: (Please select)
1. Cat
2. Half a cat
3. Cat and a half

Each year gets harder and harder for me to justify paying membership dues. I gotta admit, John Williams beating the drums for us is the only reason I've been paying.

Karl, thanks for taking the time to write him. You must have already found his email but in case you didn't, here's a link to his website:

http://www.jobsonsailing.com

I have written him on several occaisions and he has always replied, so please let us know what his response is.

Thanks,

Tim

thanks Tim, if forwarded the e-mail to the account listed on that site too.

I reached my line years ago, so NO survey for me.

Nice letter ,Karl.

My .02

Dear Mr. Jobson:

This is in response to the survey I received from US Sailing last evening. I was dismayed to find no reference to catamarans in your survey or any reference to www.catsailor.com as a source of information related to catamaran sailing.

I am aware that USS offers many services to the sailing community at large. Excluding catamarans from recognition is a disservice. This exclusion undermines your service mission and re-enforces the sentiment of many that USS wishes to exclude catamarans from the greater sailing community all together.

I believe I speak for a great many catamaran sailors in saying this: the service we value most from USS is the Alter Cup and its regional qualifiers. I will continue to support the Alter Cup and urge others to do so as well, but this latest survey won’t make that task any easier.

Sincerely,

Pete Pollard
President Pro Tem
USF16 Class Association
U.S. Sailing member #389784T

I just took the survey and kind of figured cats were grouped in with the dinghy category. I did list catsailor.com under

other

for my online sailing news information source.

This is exactly the WRONG thing to do. If you a$$hole up with Gary I can guarantee your message will never be heard and will hurt any efforts taking place to further the multihull cause within USSailing. I absolutly encourge you to reach out to Gary and express your disappointment but be adult and courteous in your exchange, anything else will make the situation worse. For those that have given up on USSailing and have nothing but an axe to grind I ask that you please walk away and let those that are actually trying to make things better work the task at hand without having to repair relationships damaged by multihull hatemail.

I have no axe to grind, and my comment was tongue in cheek, but if it helps you make a point as to what may help... then good

Good letter Karl - I wrote him also, but I put in a request for more info about the survey to find out who wrote it. Gary, I'm sure, didn't. It is appropriate to write him, however, and your tone was pitch-perfect. I'll post here if I get anything substantive back.

Agree - it was a bummer. I checked

Other

and wrote in Cat Sailor Magazine and www.catsailor.com to try and get the point across.

I took the survey and accepted the Dingy class for catamarans. Now I wish I used OTHER.

John,
I know this must be discouraging for you, but without you ,I think things would be WAY worse. So keep up the good work.

Same here

Here's Gary's email, from his website I posted above, there is also a phone number listed on his website. I did call and left a message many months ago, and he called me back, so you might try that.

garyjobson@cs.com

I just took the survey and also listed Catamran Sailor Magazine and the website as my sources for sailing info. Now I'm going to write him. Yes...I'll be nice.

Wow, couldn't agree more Ding.

Mike

Gary Jobson's response to my e-mail:

Karl,

I too was unhappy with the multihulls being left out of the survey. It is getting fixed.
In the meantime Randy Smyth and I are going to cover the multihull America's Cup next week on ESPN 360. We'll have a good chance to promote catamaran sailing.

Gary Jobson

\o/

You go Karl.
You single handedly got Gary and Randy to cover the AC. I bet Jake is gonna haaatttteeee you.He was looking for that spot.

Holy smoke and mirrors, Batman.

Gary and Randy are going to cover the AC because USSA multihull members want them to, and they want to promote multihulls? Are you BLEEEEEPING kidding me???

Call me crazy, but Gary is going because it's the AC (I know, he stayed home last time, but he's the president now). Randy is going because Gary needs someone who knows multihulls.

I'm not going to complain, because any press is good press, especially at that level, but let's not blow too much smoke up our butts.

I seriously hope Gary is being genuine, but even if he is, he's got a really uphill climb ahead of him to change the culture of USSA. They couldn't even get the survey right.

Mike

haha...well, crap. I guess we gotta get that ESPN feed working now. The feed might suck but the coverage shouldn't be pretty good...although, I have a feeling I will prefer hearing Randy talk at the campfire with a beer rather than a camera...but his take will be interesting.

More from US Sailing. This one kind of rubs me wrong, but at this point, I think I am going to let it go.

Hi Karl –

Thanks for taking the time to provide your comments. The multihull sailors certainly are passionate, as we received several comments from your colleagues. Let me present our thought process. Multihulls were considered when we were building this, but the approach was to categorize them into to the broader buckets. Possibly this was not the correct way to think about it. Nevertheless, our goals was to be brief and focused without slicing things too many ways. Towards this end, we may have omitted some options, and for this I apologize. The shortfall I guess was viewing multihull sailors as sailors, and not as a specific interest group or boat design. Our goal is inclusion rather than exclusion. We will store this experience for our future activities. Our plan is to run shorter, more focused studies on more regular basis, and we will certainly treat multihulls differently.

Thank you again for your comments.

Best,

Jack Gierhart
Associate Executive Director
US SAILING
JackGierhart@USSAILING.ORG

Congratulations Karl, you seem to have struck the right tone with them. But I find this repsonse just as disturbing and perhaps more so than the offending survey.

The shortfall I guess was viewing multihull sailors as sailors

At least you got a response.

As I didn't receive a survey, what categories did they offer for you to specify your

interest

. I note Karl put

other

for most responses.