A-Cat 2025 Review of the year.

Yet another epic A-Cat year, one filled with individual victories and disappointments.  Some moved away from the class, a few sadly left us all forever.  But some new recruits discovered the delights of their new class, while other old hands swapped their boats for different ones.  And a year when both the teacher and pupil became champions.

https://www.a-cat.org/sites/default/files/2025%20AGM%20Minutes.pdf

The Website for the 2026 Tampa Fl. Worlds is now up at https://www.aclassworlds.com

The final day of any boat class Worlds can often an odd one. Sailors battle each other all week. Throughout that time, as in real battles, small skirmishes, pockets of unseen individual personal heroism and little victories happen all over the field, aside from the main strategic objective.  Nearly everyone is involved in some way or other.  And the final victory could range from an overwhelming and inexorable force, that was usually apparent from early on, to a touch and go, narrow-margin, last ditch effort to secure the strategic objective.  

Saturday dawned with the PredictWind forecast promising something exciting happening weatherwise.

In every Worlds, there is usually one day that can stand head and shoulders above the rest for one reason or other.  That opening Monday at PuntAla with those mountainous waves, the final day at Toulon where Scotty and Kuba clinched their second titles in the rough stuff.  Well, Friday was probably that day for these Championships. Although, we have 2 more days left, and the weather does rather like to get involved in these parts.

The second day of racing at the PredictWind A-Cat Worlds was keenly anticipated.  After all, the original second day had been scrubbed due to a rather brutal forecast, featuring high winds and stormy rains.  Hence, Thursday was the day for the Classics and Open fleet to get into action on the 2 fleet courses out on Castor Bay.

Today was the culmination of many months, possibly years of hard work by the Milford Cruising club, and the NZACCA’s David Haylock, in particular, as the 2025 PredictWind A-Cat Worlds finally got underway. It takes many meetings, zoom calls and liaising with many different bodies to actually pull it together.  Ask me how I know?!  But finally, all his sleepless nights, or 4am wakeups are all worth it and the Games have begun.

For race tracking and replays, see https://www.aclassworlds.com/tracking