March 21-23 2008, Milltown Campground, Hartwell Lake, GA

Update from Mr. Ernie
This afternoon, I received a call from my friends at the Army Corps of Engineers with a proposal for me to consider. They said they would give me the key to the gate, turn on the water, and the electricity. IF --- I, personally, would take care of everything else: Including, but not limited to, cleaning the entire park before and after the regatta, cleaning and repairing all bath house facilities, removing all trash and garbage, killing another gazillion fire ants, and raising the lake back up a few feet from it's present less than full pool level.

Obviously, I agreed to all of it although I sure hope we get a few inches of rain in the next two months.

So, in short, Spring Fever is back on for this year and if we take care of the campground, as we always have done in the past, I'm pretty sure we won't have to go through this exercise again in future years - I'm just getting too old for this foolishness.

The disapointing news came today that the Spring Fever Regatta, held each year on Lake Hartwell during Easter Weekend, has been cancelled. The main reason for the cancellation is that the Corps of Engineers will not allow the organizers (Nigel Pitt and "Mr. Ernie") to use the Milltown Campground on the dates neeeded due to budget cutbacks.

After efforts to convince the Corps to allow the even failed, alternative sites were investigated. The most promising appeared to be a sailing club on the North end of the lake named Western Carolina Sailing Club www.wcsc-sailing.org, but the board of that club refused to allow the catamarans on board.

This is a very disapointing development, the Spring Fever Regatta has been a well attended regatta for 10 years and is always a good time. (Spring Fever Regatta Pictures)

Read More to see the annoucement and more details from Mr. Ernie.

Just in time for "Black Friday" shopping, I am pleased to announce the launch of "Shopping At TheBeachcats.com".

The plan for the new store is to offer catamaran sailors unique and usefull items related to our sport that are not available everywhere. In keeping with the gift giving season, the first items available are beautiful watercolor prints of catamarans, lighthouses, and nautical scenes. These have been created by the Maryland Watercolor Artist, William C. Gardner.

So if you happen to know any catamaran sailors who have been very very good this year (wink/wink) please let santa know that these are available, you will be sure to make that sailor happy, and support this site at the same time.

If you sail catatamarans or ever wanted to, join us.. "Hillbilly Cats" on Summersville and Blueston Lakes.

After being an active MHRA member on the west coast for a number of years, I now find myself in the mountains of West Virginia with few if any prospects of local regattas. So, I have decided to start up a cat/mono group here.

I have 7 boats, all are Sea spray 15's and one pram., our local lakes and ponds are wonderful and clear and nearly free of high speed boats. Most local lakes are very sail friendly. If you want to learn to sail, I will help. If you have a boat and would like to join us, (now three) we welcome your interest.

Well the racing conditions for the last day of the 2007 Ronstan A-Cat World Championship turned out to be pretty severe. The event that was building up to be a “Clash of Champions” on the final day of racing has been decided by a blow out, the wind that is.  Glenn Ashby, Lars Guck and Pete Melvin all had a shot at taking the title today in a heavy air event, but in the end the wind was too much. 

A frontal system passed over the Florida Keys last night and the breeze picked up to over 25 knots just after 0300EST.  This strong breeze refused to abate throughout the morning.  Buoy and land station reports were coming in at 22-29 knots, with gusts in the 30+ range for most of the morning.  The Organizing Authority requested a postponement at around 0900 and the PRO, Billy Richnow, flew the AP.  The RC, International Jury and competitors closely monitored the wind strengths throughout the morning watching the winds with strong hopes of getting racing in today. Winds at water level continued in the 19-22 knot range with gusts to 28.  There was also a fairly severe and square chop setting up with standard waves at 4 feet with frequent sets of 3 waves in the 6 foot range.  In the end the decision was based upon keeping the racers and their boats safe.  Even though this was a real blow to all of the competitors who had raced each other hard all week, keeping themselves in contention throughout the regatta, the OA made and outstanding call putting the safety of the sailors, their boats and all of the officials first and preventing the possible carnage that racing might have incurred.

Congratulations to Glenn Ashby, Lars Guck, Pete Melvin, Luc DuBois, Mitch Booth, Charlie Ogletree, Scotty Anderson, Murray Philpott, Andrew Landenberger, and Eugenio Calabria who were the Top 10 finishers in this event.  Congratulations also to Carla Sheifer for her efforts on the course to rescue another competitor in Thursday’s racing.