Allow me to add some comments to those of Bill. I wish to underline "ADD" here
What I've seen is that an Acat is untouchable upwind, up to the point that you start breaking stuff, like 18knts-20knts wind speed. Downwind the acat goes "wild" and sails off the wind fast but not very deep.
What the A-cat gains upwind it looses downwind with respect to other modern designs. Especially sailing the A-cat well downwind is a technique that requires considerable skill. Being a highly efficient as well cat rigged design its optimal performance groove is narrow, as with most high develloped boats. World champion A-cat Glenn Ashby described it as "you are either going really fast or really slow". In trapezing conditions the A-cat is certainly touchable upwind. In marginal trapeze and sub trapeze conditions it does have a noticeable egde upwind.
But in terms of straight line speed, an acat is about even with a F18 or F18HT but the angles are differient.
On a reach, nearly all boats are equally fast (straight line speed). I've seen Hobie 16's and A-cats runs together with a good mix of F18's, F20's and others along side them.
And indeed, the course angle are making the difference. Better pointing angle helps the A-cat upwind but the worse angles downwind hold it back. On a reach there are no angles.
I have been out on my HT and an acat has kept pace with me on a reach and I had my spin up. I was sailing higher with a spin than you would in a race, and so was the acat, but we were about even, it was an interesting comparison. The acat has 14sq m main and I had up 40sq (main and spin), so that should give you an idea of the efficiency of the A.
How about the efficiency of the Hobie 16 ? On most reaches it would have been right beside you. Reaches are bad comparisons.
What Peter J/Landy/ and others were advocating is adding a spin to the acat, but that hasnt gained momentum. The class has been pretty vocal about the simplicity of the A and the easy of set up, etc. Adding a spin would take something away from the simplicity. Plus most A's are sailed in one design fleets, so it doesnt really matter the your vmg isnt as good as a spin boat, all of the other A's are sailing similiar downwind angles.
The spi setups are a trade off. Both in setup/enjoyment and pointing angles/speed. You point upwind lower with a spi setup but win back alot more on the downwinds. It takes more time to set up the spi but spi sailing is a rather easily mastered speed booster downwind. Spinnaker sailing is a whole new dimension to cat sailing. When you think you have seen it all then try singlehanded spinnaker sailing. It is a bloody fine rush.
The other thing about the A is that it has a huge amount of development in the class focused on sails, rigs, and tuning. The only other boat with that much attention paid to it in rig/sail development and tuning is the Tornado.
Sorry guys, I can't agree with that.
Formula 18 sees alot of development and deserves a place in the listing. It may well even see more development in certain parts then the Tornado. Think hulls, spinnaker and boards. All regulated in great detail, and thus heavily limited, in the Tornado class. Wiht respect to the A-cats. Good development in masts and boards, apart from that the A-cat has not shown much development since the introduction of the flyer hull shape 10 years ago. F18's have seen much more development in other area's. Lets not forget that developping a spinnaker is something the A-cats are NOT doing, same for jibs and even beams. Yes I said beams. A-cats solution to everything is carbon and glue. F18 and other classes are currently developping non-carbon and non-glued beams that result in same performance or better. In the way of sails, F18 is doing its own development independent of the A-cats now.
Certainly in the past the A-cat was THE development class, but since the introduction of the Formula classes the A-cat has been losing significant amounts of this status. Especially now that A-cat class outlaws full foiling and even angle boards beyond any significant angle. Also developments like T-foil rudders have been done fully outside of the A-cat class.
The A-cat class is still a very interesting development class but since the late 90's it has had to accept other classes leveling with her.
So you get very efficient sails, and very efficient rigs, and lots of used/spare sails. Good news/bad news here, ...
Efficiency is great fun but the name of the game is reaching the finish line first. Drawback of efficient rigs is that their narrow optimal groove demands higher levels of skill to be put into speed and keep it there. Before I get flamed by the A-cat guys, YES, this drawback is noticeable in other efficient rigs as well (incl. F16's)
Spinnakers and jibs are great aids to get maximum performance out of a design without high levels of skill. The stalling of the rig (with these) is more gradual and/or much more predictable.
Regards,
Wouter
