Well Damon, it's our first day here in Santa Barbara and the venue is absolutely beautiful. We have taken over the parking lot with a sea of motor homes and boats. The weather is a blue sky with wispy clouds and wind at 20 plus today. Eric Finley and I took out the Super Cat 20 with seas at about the 4-6 foot range. Trying conditions to say the least. If the wind stays at this speed it will be very interesting to see who has the balls to pop the chute. The beach is a stereotypical picture of California, complete with the requisite Baywatch scene of palm trees, white sand beach, and a hot chick in a pink bikini jogging on the beach.

All the rock stars are here, and we mere mortals are walking shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Jeff Alter, Mitch Booth, Enrique Figueroa, Greg Thomas and Jacques Bernier. The view is somewhat surreal - in a parking lot adjacent to the venues lays some thirty brand new Hobie Tigers in various states of assembly. Three huge shipping containers hold more hulls and parts in a never ending stream of construction. It is a seemingly impossible task to get all these boats built in the few days that we have before official competition begins.

We are in the process of setting up an internet cafe on site courtesy of Hobie Fleet 2 from Nevada City, Ca. The parking lot where the motor homes are parked it set up as a WiFi hot spot so everyone with a laptop can stay connected to home with out leaving their rigs. Three parties are planned for the week, with the rum drinks and beer flowing freely.

Tomorrow we will begin to weigh the boats and measure the sails - I hope there is a keg close by because this will be a long day with 100 boats now competing. Speaking of beer - the daily stipend you have given us is great, but 250.00 per person per day is a little less that we are used to. Eric is blowing through his like the proverbial drunken sailor. This is really making the living conditions unbearable. I am afraid we will need more money to last us out the week. The Mount ***** rum is gone, as well as the Blue Sapphire gin, so we have already resorted to drinking the cheap stuff. It is only the first day and already we have had to lay off the college girls we hired to wheel the boat up and down the beach - the inhumanity of it all!

That's all for today, I'll send more tomorrow, and remember - send more money! We don't want to have to pawn these nice laptops you gave us to afford the "entertainment" we have planned for later in the week, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do...

Dave Atwater
Somewhere in Santa Barbara

On Tuesday March 22 2005, Team Zwitserleven of Booth/Dercksen from the Netherlands could not easily get going during the first racing day of the Princess Sofia Cup. Due to lack of wind at the coastside of Palma de Mallorca, the participants had to stay ashore yesterday. As a result, four races were scheduled for today. The only Dutch representatives went from a seventeenth place in the openings race to victory in the last one. That gives Mitch Booth and Herbert Dercksen a sixth position on the provisional overall ranking in a fleet of 33 Tornado’s.

The Sofia Cup is Team Zwitserleven’s first olympic regatta since the Athens Games in 2004, where Booth/Dercksen ended in fifth place. Today, they were not in their element yet. Dercksen: “At the beginning it was hard to do it right. We had troubles to speed up the boat. Not only because of the new mast and sails, but also because we did not have enough practice. I really had to find everything again.” During the first two races, there was a light wind of about eight knots. Booth and Dercksen crossed the finish line in respectively seventeenth and fourteenth position. Subsequently the wind increased to fourteen knots and the Dutch crew could add a sixth place and a victory to their total score. Dercksen: “It is good to know that we are still competitive. Now, we need more training and less weight.”

NACRA catamaran racers worldwide are coming together to celebrate NACRA¹s 30th Anniversary for an action-packed week of class racing. Traverse City, Michigan on Lake Michigan has been chosen as this year¹s championship location having been the the site of the very successful 1991 NACRA North American Championships. For 2005, from September 12th through 16th, an even bigger turn out is expected because of the combined championships for all NACRA Catamarans:

NACRA F18 World Championships; NACRA F17 North American Championships; NACRA 20 U. S. National Championships; and the NACRA Open Championships for NACRA 5.0 to 6.0 as well as the Beach Series Catamarans 500 to 580 models -- all to be held in 5 days of excitement.

This year, the Round Texel organization introduces an annual prize for the best performing sailing club. On Saturday June 11th 2005, world’s biggest catamaran race around the wadden island of Texel will start for the 28th time. About 600 teams are expected to challenge the elements and to test the endurance of their equipment and themselves. Since March 1st, 123 teams subscribed for the Zwitserleven Round Texel Race 2005.

Club members often travel together to Texel. Sometimes even in short laps over the North Sea. Round Texel co-ordinator Edwin Lodder: “We want to encourage these initiatives with a spezial prize, a red Zwitserleven couch for their club house. Hopefully, the Round Texel Race will become an annual trip for more sailing associations.” Last year’s promo area on the beach will return in 2005. Catamaran fans will find the newest developments there and they can get into contact with top sailors.

Province of Rimini to feature catamaran match-racing as part of BLURimini Festival.

SEA CLIFF, N.Y. - The Trustees of the International Catamaran Challenge Trophy, in conjunction with defender Southern Yacht Club, have accepted the bid submitted by Rimini, Italy, to host the celebratory 25th anniversary regatta. The event is scheduled May 26-June 1, 2005.

The Province of Rimini, located northeast of San Marino on Italy's upper Adriatic coast, is the host. The BLURimini organization and the Vela Viva Sailing Club will coordinate the event. The regatta will be a featured part of the 7th annual BLURimini Festival, a celebration of music, entertainment and sailing.

"We think that Rimini and its popular festival will make a wonderful host for the silver anniversary of the ICCT," said John B. Dawson, Chairman of the ICCT Trustees. "Multihull racing is popular in Europe, and we anticipate a fleet of 10 to 15 defenders and challengers."

The event will be sailed in F18HTs, an 18-foot, high-performance catamaran. The two-person cats are being provided by the host city and Bimare Marine, the Italian builder. They carry a 20-square-meter (215-square-foot) mainsail and spinnaker.