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Articles: 2007 Ronstan A-Cat Worlds Begin
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The stage is set and the 2007 Ronstan A-Cat Worlds gets under way today with a field that is deep in talent, experience and are proven winners. Sitting around the Tiki Bar last night at the Islander Resort, reflecting on the Blue Water classic regatta, the ISAF decision to remove multihulls from the Olympics and the talented pool of competitors at the regatta, Brian Hawboldt began a tally. He was tallying the Olympic medals, World Championships and National & Continental championships that this class of sailors represents. Present at the 2007 Ronstan A-Cat Worlds are the winners of 16 Olympic medals and over 50 World championships, not just from multihull classes, but from 505’s, I14, DN class iceboats, Lasers and a diversity of other sailing disciplines including around the world maxi-cat racers (Cam Lewis & Randy Smyth). While the results from the last day of racing in which Glen Ashby took three bullets to win the event, it would be a folly to predict the outcome of the regatta.
It is clear in looking at the final results of the Blue Water classic Regatta that the top sailors in the A-Class all are in competition for the World title. The final results are Glen Ashby in 1st, fellow Australian Scott Anderson 2nd, Swiss competitor Luc du Bois & Lars guck tied in points for 3rd and Pete Melvin in 5th. Though this was a tuning regatta, all the competitors sailed hard and the racing was close. The top thirty boats in the fleet finished within 30 seconds of each other over the course of a 45 minute race. The real test begins today.
While it is clear that no one has shown dominance by sailing away from the rest of the fleet, early results show that Glen Ashby has come to defend his title and add another World’s to his already astonishing racing resume. Looking at the list of competitors, there clearly are 10-15 who could win this regatta. Early favorites are Glen Ashby, Pete Melvin, Lars Guck, Scot Anderson, Charlie Ogletree, Phil Kinder, Pease Glaser, Luc du Bois, Philpot Murray and Ben Hall. There of course are many others who could walk away with the win, but these are the early stars.
This regatta also features many new platforms, masts, sails and rigging, but two stand out for their shear audacity or ingenuity. Ben Hall’s boat by far is the most radical and intriguing of the fleet. He has shown up on the new Peter Cogan design (an evolution of the XJ patform), but with a rigid wing atop the platform. Ben, after early in the year talking with C-Class guru, Steve Clark, decided to embark upon this project, reflecting that everyone else was focused on platform changes and not engine changes). So after a great deal of concerted research and design efforts, he built the first rigid wing on an A-Class catamaran. It is cool to look at, a great design and is showing well early on in the regatta. One of the early fears has been allayed, which was how it would react to flipping over during and event. Ben flipped the boat over during race 4 and was able to get it righted on his own and continue sailing to a 20th place finish. Inspections after returning to the beach showed no signs of water leakage into the frame. Ben is still in the learning phase of the wing and one has to wonder how he would be doing had he spent more time with the wing prior to this regatta. The boat is blazing fast off the wind and goes well up-wind. The limiting factor right now is Ben, who just needs more time with the wing. The final question after this regatta will be, is this the future for the A-Class and if so at what cost?
The other boat is the radical designed Lindahl & Roake LR2. When you first see this boat, you either love it or hate it, but it is an intriguing design. The bows are true wave piercing bows that Pete Melvin on first view dubbed “The Penetrator”. Richard Roake is the designer and the hulls were built by John Lindahl who is and expert craftsman & boat builder. The first thing that you notice is the absolute workmanship of the boat. Then you begin looking at the details, the saber-like high aspect dagger boards and rudders, the prominent torpedo shape of the bows, the top to bottom construction technique and the precision finish. The LR2 is being sailed at the regatta by Ian Lindahl, Randy Smyth and Fred Smith and this will be its first test. Each boat features a different mainsail. Randy is using a purpose built design that he made for this regatta, Ian is on the latest generation of Glaser sails and Fred is sailing with a Tony Arend’s RacerX mainsail. The boat is very stable in all conditions and show less inclination to pitch-pole. It is fast down wind and does well to weather. As radical as it is, it still does not seem to be producing a true break through is speed.
With all of the other technical aspects that go into A’s maybe we need to put this into some perspective. The old saying in this class is “Length, beam, weight and anything else goes”. The A Class has very simple rules. The boat is 18’ long, 7’6” on the beam, minimum weight of 75kg and carries 150sqf of sail area. After that anything truly goes as seen by the myriad of sail, hull, mast, rudder & dagger board designs at the regatta. There are many different sail makers represented here, but the top are Glaser sails, Ashby Sails, Landenberger Sails, Ullman Sails and Goodall Sails and RacerX Sails. There are another 4-8 present as well. Masts are carbon fiber from Halls Spars, Fiberfoam, Riba and Saarberg. The dominant platforms though are the Morreli & Melvin A3 and the Ashby/Geltek Flyer MKII. They have won together the past 2-3 world championships and many national & continentals as well. While there are many new and exciting platforms and rigs in attendance, it will be great to see how they compete and perform against each other during the worlds.
The 2007 Ronstan A-Cat Worlds is and ISAF sanctioned events with International Judges present and on the water. There will be two races a day Monday-Thursday and one race on Friday. The driving forces behind the regatta are Bob Webbon and John Sheifer who have put together a great organization of volunteers and a first rate RC to run the event. Each evening also is full of social events, themed dinners and parties, as well as post racing meetings and re-caps. Racing begins at noon with a forecast of 12-16 knots on Monday. With a high pressure system sitting off the coast it looks like offshore breezes through Wednesday. One of the features of this race venue is an underwater reef that is about 3 miles off-shore. This gives the sailors relatively smooth and sheltered water for the event. Given the number of world class competitors and the depth of their experience, this should be an unparalleled championship event. I will keep you posted throughout the event.
Thank you,
Thomas Siders
Results & Pictures at http://acatworlds.com/
To finish this, the ISAF decision not to have multihulls represented in the 2012 Olympics has truly been felt at Islamorada, FL. Please consider the sheer number of Olympic competitors and past Olympic medalists at the 2007 Ronstan A-Cat Worlds, not only from the Tornado class but from other Olympic classes as well. The number of people affected by this decision is significant and the moods, responses and tone range from, disappointment, abandonment and disenfranchisement to anger, sadness and outright disbelief. Though a number of these individuals have been spoken to, none of them would like to go on record with their feelings, statements and beliefs at this time. Personally, I feel that this decision represents a big step backwards and reflects poorly upon the judgment abilities of the organizing authorities.
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