In a nutshell...no. The demographic is a little different from our traditional regattas but the camaraderie, the open sharing of ideas, and the general good natured fun is at least on par with all the other events I attend. Most of these guys don't participate much in online forums either. I've often heard about this event that takes place before tradewinds and I've felt kind of like they didn't want to play with us and were snubbing us for doing their own thing. I've heard it from some other people too...but when you can get nearly 30 one design boats together with one start and as much racing as you want to do with some of the greatest talent in the country for a week of sailing in the Florida Keys - wouldn't you do it? They're (we're) not snobby - we just enjoy the heck out of it. This year, several of us are moving up the road and/or switching boats to do Tradewinds but I gotta tell you - this a-cat thing is a lot of fun!

I think I missed my setup for yesterday - too much rake and too much diamond wire tension/spreader rake left me a little underpowered. I've got a 9 year old Boyer MKIV and an 8 year old Goodall sail. I think there are one or two older Marstrom A's out here but everyone else has all the new Javalin's and A2 / A3s and the EVO's are hot sexy. You can still be competitive with an old boat - I'm running about mid-pack with my kit and feeling pretty good about it! (though I do wish I had that new Ashby main!).