A brief history of the Detroit Model Yacht Club - continued
By:Wick Smith
In 1990 we built two Soling One Meters and presented them to the club as a solution to the problem. The Soling was rejected for several reasons, mostly the need for member input to make sure the boats were built correctly. In 1991 the club was given four CR-914's as a promotion for the new class. We were to sail these boats in a race-off and send the winner to San Diego for the Mini America's Cup. That winter it was proposed to the membership that we adopt the CR-914 as an entry-level kit boat. It required no member input to build and met the One-Design requirements. We felt we needed 6 to 8 current members to buy boats to give it a start. The proposal failed. None of the current members were willing to buy a kit. They thought it was to close to a One Meter in size and the cost was too high.
Just after this the America's Cup class was introduced in 1993. About that same time the EC-12 class was abandoned due to lack of interest. The club now supported three classes once again. This put more pressure on the few members that in the past were building 1 to 2 boats a year in the Marblehead or the One Meter classes. Because of this, both the M and O-M lost boats in the early 90's. Mostly because we were not replacing boats owned by members that decided to keep their boats in the basement and not sail. I do not fault the members that decided to sail in the AC class. All of them were sailing boats in other fleets. They did not reduce the number of boats sailing directly, they did affect the other classes indirectly because they were the people building new boats and selling their old ones to new members.
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