Catamaran Sailor Magazine will be on site and reporting on this website daily with pictures, stories and results. So stay tuned and check the Welcome Page of this site at www.catsailor.com or click on the icon in the upper left corner for daily reports.

The 2007 Ronstan A-Cat Worlds was already shaping up to be a phenomenal and exciting regatta, with many of the top A-Cat sailors in the world in attendance, but the stakes have gotten even bigger. An entry list that already boasted many big names in the sailing world just grew better. Randy Smyth will be sailing on the new and radical Lindahl & Roake designed LR2 with evidently an equally radical sail that he has designed for the boat. Robbie Daniel, fresh from the exciting US Tornado Class Olympic trials will make his debut on A’s at the event. Ben Hall, long time A-Class sailor will be making a start on the newly designed, Peter Cogan Nikita featuring a rigid wing sail that Ben built. Matt Struble has jumped over from the DN class to try his hand at A-Class sailing and cam Lewis is putting aside Maxi-cats (Team Adventure) & 505’s for the moment to focus upon this regatta. Howie Hamlin, a recent convert from 505’s, I14 and other performance dinghies will be on a Morreli & Melvin A3 with a Glaser main. Goran Marström will be showcasing the new Marström M5 A-class catamaran at the event. The field is full of former world champions, Olympic medalists and some of the best sailors from around the world. Adding to this exciting field is the shear amount of design and engineering that is in p[lay at the event. Glenn Ashby will be on his Geltek Flyer MKII with the latest iteration of Ashby sails. The new Scheuerer Generation 5, The Tool from Wayne Mercer in Australia, the battle proven Bimare XJ, the Italian built and designed Balance, the Radical LR2, the Peter Cogan designed Nikita (one with Hall spar & one with Rigid Wing), the European built Aicher/Engel Flyer and some of the other platforms will make for exciting racing on and off the course. Who will come out on top? Will it be Lars Guck who has dominated the US fleet for the past two years, will Glenn Ashby, current A-Class, F18 and Tornado World champion win or Pete Melvin who’s consistent finishes always rank him among the top of the fleet? Or will it be Ben Hall with his rigid wing, randy Smyth on a radical boat with radical sails and a person who has proven he can jump on anything and win? Will it be a world champion from another class, Howie Hamlin, Matt Struble, Robbie Daniel or Cam Lewis? Can Cam make the jump from the 110’ Team Adventure and place on an 18’ A-cat? The rig and sails will also add a great deal to this battle on the water. Spars from Hall Spar, Fiberfoam, Riba Composites, Saarberg and a few others will be paired with sails from Glaser Sails, Ullman (Italy and US), Landenberger, Ashby Sails, OXO Sails and Goodall Sails to name a few including a new Randy Smyth sail purpose built for the regatta and Ben Hall’s Rigid Wing sail as well. The excitement build, the race is on to see who comes out on top of the A-Cat World!

Rick

Rick

in yr posting I found a few mistakes and two important omissions.

To start with the mistakes:
1) Nikita is the name of the latest A cat design of Nils Bunkenburg,(who will not attend the Worlds). As far as I know Peter Cogan's project has not been given a name;
2) the Balance is built in Spain and was designed by the Spanish Sito Aviles Ramos;
3) the Flyer is built in Europe by the German boatyard Aicher & Egner and in Australia (under licence) by Geltek.

And now the omissions:
the competitors' list does not include the names of Charlie Ogletree, Olympic silver medalist in the Tornado Class in 2004, and Mitch Booth, Olympic bronze medalist in 1992 and silver medalist in 1996 again in the Tornado class.

Both of them will sail on BIMARE/VMI XJs.

I don't think Rick wrote that report. Who ever did should have included two important items in the first line: Where and When. Lots of blather about boats, and rock stars, nothing about where and when. Most of us will be trying to keep up via this site on the internet, thaks for that Rick. When does the real racing begin? I think it's Nov.12, is that right?

Location - Islamorada, Fl
When- pre-regatta 11/08 and 11/09.
Worlds runs 11/12 thru 11/16

Lots sailors, and lotsa fun.

I'll post pics from the back of the fleet...

-Mike

Rick, Great to hear you'll be covering this event! It really sounds fantastic! Thanks, Brian

Rick,

I'll look forward to seeing you there. Just hanging out in the boat park should be interesting. The social schedule for this event is equally impressive. The sponsors are hosting opening and closing parties and then during the week, parties are being hosted by the Texas/LA sailors, the Canadian sailors, and the mid-Atlantic/Northeast sailors. There is a lot of verbal sparring going on right now about which region will host the best party. Competition and trash talking is good for our stomachs and thirst!

The regatta website is www.acatworlds.com. Pictures and results updates will be posted ASAP as they happen.

The schedule is as follows:

November 8-9 - Bluewater Classic Warmup Regatta
November 10-11 - WC registration and measurement
November 12-16 - RONSTAN A-Class World Championship

Host venue - Islander Resort
Location - Islamorada, FL

Bob Hodges
USACA
USA 230

Is there a spectator boat? If so, I may have to "steal" a day and come down to watch. This is too good to miss.

Good luck Bob. I wish I was there with y'all competing on Amy - instead of making gasoline to keep the free world moving <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Chris.

Rick

are you on site and ready to provide us with timely reports and great photos?

Rick is on site. I just called and got an interim report from him. He is out with Chip Short on Chip's powerboat, and both of them are getting pictures, which will be posted on this site later.

Right now, as I write, they are on the second-to-last leg of the first race. The course is windward-leeward-windward-leeward-windward and leeward finish. Here were the positions as of the second time around the weather mark:

1st, Glenn Ashby, Australia
2nd, Sjoerd Hoekstra, Netherlands
3rd, Scotty Anderson, Australia
4th, Donald Beike, Germany
5th, Lars Guck, USA
6th, Murray Philpott, New Zealand
7th, Mitch Booth, Netherlands
8th, Mike Drummond, New Zealand
9th, Eugenio Calabria, Italy
10th, unidentified black boat
11th, Chad Atkins, USA

At that point Randy Smyth, on the Richard Roake design, was back in about 25th place.

There will be two races today.

There are 98 boats participating.

Rick and Chip are sitting at the finish line right now and will have an update, after the boats finish.

Rick will have a full report this evening, along with pictures.

Whoops, forgot to tell you: The wind is about 12 mph out of the northeast (slightly offshore) and there is a low chop.

Okay, the first race is over, and I have the first 24 positions, at least as they were recorded on the boat Rick is on. These are NOT official.

1. Glenn Ashby, Australia, with a BIG lead.
2. Lars Guck, USA
3. Sjoerd Hoekstra, Netherlands
4. Donald Beike, Germany
5. Scotty Anderson, Australia
6. Mitch Booth, Netherlands
7. Murray Philpott, New Zealand
8. Charlie Ogletree, USA
9. Matt Struble, USA
10. Pete Melvin, USA (the formerly unidentified black boat)
11. Eugenio Calabria, Italy
12. Luc Dubois, Sweden
13. Gordon Isco, USA
14. Chad Atkins, USA
15. Phil Kinder, USA
16. Graeme Harbour, Australia
17. Mike Drummond, New Zealand
18. Peter Cogan, USA
19. Bruce Edwards, USA
20. Pieter Saarberg, Netherlands
21. Robbie Daniel, USA
22. Goran Marstrom, Sweden
23. Andrew Gaynor, USA
24. Woody Cope, USA

Second race:
Well, I guess I was wrong about the low chop -- apparently, it is BIG chop, so Rick and Chip boat is not going to go back to the finish line to get the finishes, because it would beat them to death to get home from there. (So much for intrepid reporters.)

Anyway, here was the order of the first 12 around the weather mark for the second time in the second race:

1. Murray Philpott, NZ
2. Patrick Burger, USA
3. Dieter Melcher, Switzerland
4. Lars Guck, USA (He was in 10th the first time around the weather mark and moved up to 4th)
5. Eugenio Callabria, Italy
6. Phil Kinder, USA
7. Luc Dubois, Sweden
8. Chad Atkins, USA
9. Mitch Booth, NED
10. Hoekstra, NED
11. Charlie Ogletree, USA
12. Glenn Ashby, Australia

They will get me the rounding positions the last time around the weather mark, and you will have to wait a while to get the actual finish positions.

Rick says the first weather mark rounding in this race was really tight, with a lot of boats, but the second time around, the race committee moved the mark to the right, apparently because of a wind shift. A bunch of the first boats went to the original mark and did not realize the course had been changed until they saw a RC boat picking up the original mark. Then they headed for the new mark.

Philpott was in the lead going to the wrong mark, but managed to maintain his lead when he got to the correct mark.

Okay, here are the rounding positions the third time they rounded the weather mark. Rick thinks the positions probably won't change much if any on the downwind leg to the finish.

1. Lark Guck
2. Pete Melvin
3. Murray Philpott
4. Mitch Booth
5. Chad Atkins
6. Glenn Ashby
7. Luc Dubois
8. Scotty Anderson
9. Eugenio Callabria
10. Donald Beike
11. Phil Kinder, USA
12. Wayne Mercer, Australia
13. Sjoerd Hoekstra
14. Graeme Harbour
15. Charlie Ogletree
16. Mike Drummond
17. Erik Andersson, Sweden
18. Ben Moon, Australia
19. Matt Struble
20. Andrew Landenberger, Australia
21. Robbie Daniel
22. Bruce Edwards, USA

whew! Our USA boys are hanging in there tough!

Hey Mary,

Do you know what the two weather marks look like? This can be a hot topic at big events.

Mike

Why? Are they hard to see or something? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

4 foot marks in 6 foot "chop" makes it kinda hard to spot them.

There was way more than 12 knots on the course today. More like 15 with gusts up to 20.

Apparently...

"A bunch of the first boats went to the original mark and did not realize the course had been changed until they saw a RC boat picking up the original mark."

Might be those new-fangled invisble Charlie flags...

EDIT: Whoops, we posted at the same time. Minature marks certainly make it tougher. The bigger issue is normally having all the marks the same color and shape, and trying to rectify it with a black band or something. That's OK on a lake, much different in rough, open water. BUT, the complaints are generally the same.

Mike

In case you haven't noticed yet, Rick has posted story and pix. Go to our welcome page and click on the links in the teaser paragraph. If you don't know how to get to our welcome page, it is www.catsailor.com. Or you can click on the Catamaran Sailor logo at upper left of this page.

At the time he posted the story, the race committee had not yet posted final results, so he did the best he could.

Mary,

you might want to re-check that URL. It took me to a holding page, not your frontpage..