A Class Catamaran World Championship Victory for NACRA A2

Pete Melvin, sailing a new stock NACRA A2 A Class Catamaran, won the hotly contested 2005 A Class Catamaran World Championships in Sanguinet, France. The A2 is designed by Morrelli & Melvin and Jeremy Laundergan.

“A Class Catamarans are a single handed boat, but this was a team victory” said Melvin. “Our team really came through by developing a great boat and then helping me train and providing logistical support for the World Championship”.

The resin-infused carbon fiber hulls and foils are built at the Morrelli & Melvin Product Development facility in Santa Ana, California. Boats are marketed, assembled, and distributed by Performance Catamarans, also of Santa Ana. Jan DeBoer Catamarans in the Netherlands provide European distribution.

The regatta included 100 of the worlds’ best A Class Catamaran sailors from 16 countries. The fleet was comprised of seven former A Class Catamaran World Champions (including Melvin), and at least four Olympic medallists. Glenn Ashby from Australia, winner of the last two World Championships, ended up in second place. Steve Brewin, also from Australia and a past World Champion, was third.

Melvin completed the event with very consistent scores, never falling below ninth place in any of the eight races completed. “The A2 performed very well in its first World Championship showing. My speed was consistently good, especially downwind, allowing me to move up through the fleet and finish near the top in all races sailed,” said Melvin.

A Class Catamarans are a “box rule” development class that has been in existence since the 1960’s. Current designs are highly developed, with race proven innovations often leading to implementation of these concepts in other classes of boats. Morrelli & Melvin have been at the forefront of A Class design ever since their first offering won the World Championship in 1997.


Pete Melvin has been competing at a world-class level since his youth. He has won three World Championships; over 25 National and North American titles, five WSSRC sanctioned World Records, and has competed in the Olympics. Pete is a founder and principal at Morrelli & Melvin, and manages the Design Office on a daily basis.

Hi all,

can't wait to see a reggatta report. It's hard to know what went on with just results. Rick didn't mention that Melvin didn't win one race, the Aussies one all but one. Also Ashby finished only one point behind after drops, if all 9 races that where planned had been sailed who knows?

Before you call me on behalf of OZ a bad loser.I wold say anyway you can beat Ashby on a A class would do me. Melville sailed one hell of a consistent regatta while Aussies didn't. Just love to find out why.

Regards Gary

www.sailinganarchy.com has some more details directly from Pete.

Gary,
The report was not written by Rick. He posted a press release (and photos) that we received from Pete Melvin.

This A-Class Worlds saw no less than 8 former world champions and must be considered to be one of the strongest fleets ever. All 100 possibly entries were occupied and some 10 sailors were not allowed to enter.
Every one with name and fame was present and that means also a lot of boate builders and sail makers. See the attached results.
Conditions were indeed very calm during the worlds and it was very hot too.

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Are those "lifting foils" on Ashby?
It looks like the centerboard is angled inboard.

Yeah? So?

The A Class rules forbid hydrofoils.
At some angle, inward canting boards function more as lifting foils, than daggerboards (see Hydoptere)
There was a long discussion in March on the A Class forum about foils.
The question wasn't decided.

nor, I believe, was it decided exactly what constitutes a "hydrofoil" as the rule is worded.

Does anybody know at what parameters angled daggerboards become effective? I suppose it's dependent on weight, sail area, wind/water conditions etc?

As Pete is using them on hos own design, there probably is a rationale behind it (can't all be to throw the competition off), and I would like to know more.

I didn't think the A2 had angled boards ... at least I didn't notice it on the prototype in CA earlier this year.

Sorry Jake, you are right!
I was refering to the picture earlier in the thread, thinking it was Pete, but it's not. When I look harder at it, it looks more like Glenn Ashby?

This makes my question even more puzzling, as some A's have canted boards while others dont. I would think that it's not a big deal then?

It can be a big deal. The idea behind the canted board is that it helps provide lift on the leeward hull resulting in less wetted surface area. There was an F18 a couple of years ago that had boards that were seriously canted (something like 30 or 45 degrees!). Canted hulls are not allowed in F18 and the rules were later modified to require the daggerboards to also be in the same vertical plane as the hulls. Orma60 Trimarans and the C-class catamarans have taken the canted board concept to the extreme with the 'bananna boards' that are circular in shape - the concept works. Next time you look at an Orma 60 trimaran, consider the tiny size of the amas and ask yourself how they could possibly fly two hulls on that tiny little ama. The canted (bananna in this case) board provides the lift to give the ama extra height in the water to be able to carry the load. Somewhere I read that the optimum lifting board angle points it's lifting force at the center of lift provided by the sail plan.

With regards to the A cats, their rules prohibit the use of "hydrofoils". However, the term "hydrofoil" is not defined very well but is assumed to infer something with a t-foil shape (like the Moth or Windrider Rave has). There are those that feel that a canted board, because it provides lift, falls within the definition of "hydrofoil". It's a big grey area and it looks like Ashby was willing to test it.

I had the opportunity to study two ORMA-60's in Stockholm in May, they are very large and impressive when you float by on your small 20 footer! It was only light wind unfortunately, so I did not get to se the foils in action. I have drooled over the videos tough, and find Cheekee Monkees attempt to reproduce it on a smaller scale very interesting.
Ref: http://www.cheekeemonkee.com/

A digression: A friend,who tried hard to get an olympic berth in the 49'er class stated that he did not have any belief in those "multihull thingies" and did not care to try racing on Tornados. He is now a regular crew on the norwegian 60' tri competing in the "Oops Cup", guess he has eaten those words several times by now. "whOops"
http://www.oopscup.com/
Or for an exclusive report of another event in Stockholm:
http://www.flerskrog.org


I am still confused regarding parameters to make the angeled daggers on A's work, and perhaps they also are? But why would Glenn (if it is Glenn on the picture above) bring something untried, or less than optimal to the worlds? Is this just an uncharted area that needs more research and time?

yeah that's Gashby. Quiet a few sailors have been using these boards in the As for a few years now including Scotty Anderson. They believe it helps..... Particularly in a bit more breeze. It definatly is not slower.

(Straight) Canted boards are a compromise, the more you cant, the more upward lift you may likely produce, but the less sideways resistance you produce. Thats why the Orma and C Class went to curved boards, you get both with less compromise.

If you want to talk about an interesting way to generate lift, lets talk gybing boards. Or boards that can be adjusted in all planes while sailing or to the conditions.

Bill

F18 always used to allow canted hulls; if they don't now that there must have been a recent amendment that I missed. I don't think such a change to the rules was made though. Canted daggerboards is another matter, these are forbidden in the F18 rules if the baords are under an angle relative to the centreplan of the hulls. In effect your boards must have the same canting as your hulls.

However most F18's have gone back to uncanted boards as there doesn't seem to be much advantage to having canted hulls.

Wouter

Rumour over here (we have a guy at our club that experiments alot with these things) is that slightly inward angled boards reduce the pitching up the boat. The boat sails calmer in chop and such and this will lead to preformance gain. The lift of the boards seem to be way to small matter in a significant way through reducing wetted surface.

But like I said it is just a rumour at this time. He also says that he sail 5 to 10 degrees higher with them but I didn't see that happen.

Wouter