I was planning on leaving today for the Midwinters, it would have been my first "A-cat" regatta. Work has interfered enough to keep me from going.
I was really hoping someone could give us some updates as the regatta progresses.
Killing me to not be there, but hopefully I'll make the Admirals cup.
Todd Hart

It's been a fun regatta so far with six races sailed over two days. Yesterday race 1 had a solid 15-18 knots but it dropped to 10-12 for race 2, and 6-8 for race 3. Today, race 4 had 6-8 knots but it was lighter for races 5 and 6, about 4-6 (almost no trapping upwind). There has also been a lot of current across the course which has made it interesting.

With one day of racing remaining, the standings are close. There is only a four point spread across the top five. Ben Hall leads with 14 points total, Bob Hodges and Randy Smyth are tied for second with 15 points each, Brett Moss is in 4th with 17 points, and Woody Cope is in 5th with 18 points.

Thanks.

Todd, I told Kevin about this place. Cary, the wives, and I are staying here for the Admiral's cup. Its 15 minutes away(other side of Island), but has a heated pool and a few restaraunts across the street, plus kayaks for the wives while we are sailing, $129 a night sleeps 4.
http://twofishinn.com/

david

Will there be Cafe con leche at the two fish inn?

I know the rum will be

Can someone who is there please elaborate on who is putting on the regatta? I live only about 90 miles away and have never heard of any cat racing over there. Is there a club sponsoring/organizing this and do you think we can get them to do more regattas for -other- cats?

It would be great to get another Florida location especially in that area as there has not been much in the way of cat racing on the south-west coast of FL, but there are several cat racers who live over there who do travel to race.

Tim, If you follow A cats (all on the USACA website) (you can also sign up for our webmail list on that site) you would have certainly heard about this event. We are hosting the event off the front lawn of Ben Hall’s new home on Pine Island. We are expecting 25 + A cats. Ben has a lot of personal boat contacts in the area (no club affiliation) that will be running the regatta so it will be very personal and flexible as to adapt for the best possible racing to suite everyone over the weekend (the way regattas should be). As we did last year, we just had the A cat midwinters at Ft Desoto Park with a similar format, no club affiliation and it worked great. The A cat association is also funding to have Lars Guck fly in for the weekend to run a training clinic on the Friday and debrief after both days of racing. On the Friday night over a few beers, Ben H is also going to run a session on mast bends and mast dynamics. If you are in the area give me a call. (Mat McDonald has my number) I am sure you would be more than welcome to come along and see what we get up to. With all of the discussions about witch cat to sail I think more emphasis needs to be placed on the how active a class is. We have a great group of fun people sailing the class from all ages and abilities and everyone has a great time. By the time this event is over we will have had 5 events this year with more than 20 boats participating in each and another 1 per month for the following two months. No this is not an over commitment, we have enough events and people that you can chose one or a few that suit, over the 5 events we will have had 40 + and by the NA’s in May (the last event that we are expecting 50 + boats) that number will have risen to 60 +. The notion that A cats are not for the average cat sailor is a lot of crap….. We may not have spins but we do a lot of great racing and attract a lot of great sailors. And because of this, no matter what you level you will learn a lot and have a great time doing it. Less talking more sailing!! Come join the fun!

Cheers, Ben Moon

Admirals cup web site https://event-manager.compete-at.com/Manager/event/home.do?eid=785

Thanks for the info Ben. I had always thought that area of Florida was a perfect cat sailing site but up until now, had seen about -zero- events held there. I'm always looking for a new place to live, most likely on the west coast of FL, but I don't like crowds, trafic, crime, etc. so that limits me to a very few places. Sebring has been good but nobody here sails.

Glad to hear Ben Hall is putting this whole thing together and you guys are having fun and getting lots of A cats out. I think an A cat will be in my future some day, but I can't justify two boats right now and I'm not ready to give up the Blade just yet (because it's -paid for- so it's cheap racing!)

As soon as Mamma hits the lotto, look out! There are lots of toys on my list. OR, maybe I can trade you a horse for an A cat...