Prindle Catamarans 50th Anniversary Regatta

I’m Chris, a Texas boy who loves sailing catamarans. I sailed some multi hulls in high school but spent more time on monohulls than anything else. Mostly J-24, Sunfish, and other keel boats, but I had a friend who had a Nacra 5.0 and another with a Hobie 18 that gave me that taste of sheer face melting multihull speed. I was hooked immediately. Through college I dabbled on some more keel boats and dinghies, then through a turn of events, I lucked into a Prindle 19 which became known as ¡Hijole! How did I settle on this beast? I ended up as a big boy (6 foot 5 and 250lbs), and as my kids started getting big enough to sail with me I needed room, so it was a hobie 18, F18, Nacra 5.8 or 6.0, the general gambit. So I ended up with the late Morris Covin’s boat and that is where this story of the Prindle 50^th Anniversary North Americans Regatta begins. Sometime in late 2018 or very early 2019 a friend, Scott, and I were sitting there probably enjoying a rum drink or beer after a cat regatta on Galveston Bay and the subject of the recent Hobie 50^th North Americans came up. We started discussing how the Prindle class had become kind of the forgotten class, and that started the gears in motion. As most of these things do, we talked it up with some other local Prindle sailors and some not Prindle sailors and the responses were all positive, the wheels were starting into motion. Well, late 2019 this little thing called Covid-19 became reality for all of us, and we almost had our sport stopped in Harris and Galveston Counties as boat ramps and beaches were shut around the country, our vision of the then Prindle Nationals kind of was dimmed as we started looking at postponing. Well, as things would go, we still managed to race through 2020, but nobody was going to be traveling and so we put it on the back burner. As 2020 drew to a close, things started back to life as we kind of once knew it. Early into 2021, we started serious planning knowing good and well that we had certainly missed the window for holding the event in 2021 as well. It was then that a friend of ours mentioned that he had a first year Prindle 16, a 1972. I made mention to Scott that we could turn this not only into the first nationals in almost 20 years, but we could make a once in a lifetime Prindle event. As we spoke more, we started reaching out to sponsors like Murrays, SLO, C&C Sail Makers, Colligo Marine, Affinity Capital and more. We started to look for venues, and we had several on the Texas coast that ranged from Galveston to Corpus Christi. We finally settled on a little town called Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Peninsula right across the Houston Ship Channel and Bolivar Roads from Galveston Island. The event is to be held on the beach front, through the surf in the early summer, June. The surf in Bolivar is usually more docile than down the coast, and it’s an hour and a half from the big metropolitan area of Houston. As time draws near, we still have time to sign up for the event, and we already have a dozen competitor boats lined up with more on the way, we are looking to get 50 boats racing. There are many beach houses that can host upward of 10 people in each, and there are a couple motels within minutes of the race site. We will be able to leave our boats on the beach and camping is allowed at the beach as well for those who want to go that route. Through our Facebook page and that of the Prindle Catamarans page on facebook, we have reached out to several of the original names of the class and the feedback has been good all round. We hope to see some of the old names in the fleet show up. I know we are excited, and I hope that you are as well to see these old fleets revived and sailed nationally again. I would be remiss to not mention my friend at Murrays, Tom, who has helped me with ideas for planning this event as he has been to many more events than I. I've included below the regatta network, Prindle Catamarans facebook page, and the Prindle 50^th Anniversary North Americans Regatta facebook page as well.   Hope to see you guys there   Chris   Regatta Registration.   Prindle Catamarans   Prindle North Americans 50th Anniversary