2024 Review – The A-Cat year of massive fleets and bendy masts.
2024 Review – An A-Cat year of Massive Fleets and Bendy Masts.
JAN
New Year always starts with a bang in Australia, beating everyone other than the Kiwis, into 2024. The spectacular pyrotechnic displays over Sydney and from its bridge, are the signal for the Aussie sailors to pack their boats onto trailers, and plan their, for a few, mammoth road trips to the scene of the next Nationals action. This year it was to Lake Macquarie, some 90 mins north of Sydney and one of the many sailing magnets this country has to offer.
The South Lake Macquarie Amateur Sailing Club were the hosts, and as the shores of this deceptively massive lake are thronged with many Aussie sailing superstars’ homes, a few usually turn out to join in the fun at this friendly little member run club. This year, the Association was joined by two Special Guest Stars with the arrival of the 2022 World Champ Ravi Parent USA 76, and is fellow countryman, US No. 3, the ebullient Michael Christiansen, USA 37.
The 5 day, 12 race series saw all manner of winds and from every direction, but the racing was good. Adam Beatie AUS 14 managed to hold off a good challenge from Ravi, winning 8 bullets to Ravi’s 3, and showed an impressive turn of speed in the Open category. In the Classic fleet, it was the reigning World Champ, Scott Anderson, who was pretty unstoppable with 7 bullets and a clutch of seconds to become AUS Classic Champion. All sailed the Exploder Ad3 platforms.
No sharks were seen.
FEB
The action moved across the Tasman Sea, to the land of the Long White Cloud. The Nelson Yacht Club, at the top of the New Zealand South Island was the host club. In some excellent conditions, Dave Shaw NZL 270 again ruled supreme in the Open fleet, and John Kennett topped the Classics. Everyone will be looking forward to next Nov now, as the Worlds will take place in NZL in November.
MAR
March tends to be the class quiet month Championship-wise, as most fleets are now putting their boats to bed or thinking about getting them out again. Only the US fleet, with its large geographic spread, will sail pretty much all year, and several travel to Florida for their off-season action.
APR
This month in the US/CAN association, that action becomes the Admiral’s Cup, the traditional warm up for their Nationals. This year, in some nice breeze at the Pensacola YC, it was won by Cam Farrah, USA 426 in great style and the first woman to win the cup, but hopefully not the last. Then the fleet attention turned to their Nationals week at the same venue. The fleet waited ashore, and waited, and waited. The Postponement flag seemed to become as permanent as the club pennant. Finally on the penultimate day, enough wind arrived to allow racing to start. Over the next 48hrs, the Race Officer got 7 races squeezed it! Bruce Mahoney, USA 311, once again proved he is the US Open King with straight bullets, and Bob Hodges, USA 230, became the Classic Champion gaining 5 at this frustrating event that saw a good 1/3rd of the fleet quite before the final day.
Back over the pond, at Campione Univela, Garda, the traditional Easter Regatta was sailed in the usual Garda winds. In a 33-boat fleet, it was World Open Champion, Kuba Surowiec, POL 41 who took the honours, ahead of Ravi who was spending the summer in Europe. Garda is a foiling venue, nevertheless, Classic sailors love it there too, and their fleet was won by Mortiz Wies GER 121, and followed by Matthias Dietz, GER 3.
Meanwhile, also in the Old World, at Schweriner, near Wismar, they had a different problem weatherwise. The GER Nats started in the rain and with light winds. Day two it became rather fruitier and fun, with the sun out, and the final day saw more good breeze and great sailing. At the end, Alex Meister, GER 27, was crowned Open Champion and class newbie Jan Hagen Voight, GER 342, claimed the Classic Champion’s title.
However, the event was somewhat overshadowed by the sudden passing of German A-Cat legend Mattias Dietz, GER 3. He was taken ill at the event on Friday and died in hospital on the Monday. He was and will be sadly missed, being a fixture on the European A-Cat scene for many years, many of them at the front of the fleet in the light stuff. And it was therefore appropriate that had actually won his very last race. Everyone’s friend, not to be forgotten
MAY
The North Sea, at Knokke, was the next Nationals venue, and the BEL Championships. The RBSC Duinbergen, just off Zeebrugge, were their hosts. A largely Classic fleet, they like to alternate their sailing between usually light wind Southern Belgian lakes and the brisk North Sea coast. The good sandy beach sailing was won this year by Marc Van Cutsem BEL331.
The same weekend, off one of the many Danish coasts, this one being off the Eastern shores of the island of Fyn. Odense being the main city, home of Hans Christian Andersen of course. 30 mins away is the town of Kerteminde and the Sail Extreme 2024 event, where and the Little Mermaids of the DEN fleet sailed on the waters of the Great Belt. Their strong fleet, probably a legacy of their Viking heritage, saw Thomas Paasch DEN 1, again become the DEN Champion in a good 17 boat fleet, and benefitting for a change, from its closeness to Germany, several GER sailors also enjoyed the sailing.
The lovely waters of Valencia was the venue for the ESP Nats, under the host of the Real Club Nautico and the ADECAT, (Asociacion De Catameranes), the Spanish Cat umbrella organisation. This is a good way to get decent numbers together and allow smaller fleets to race together in a larger event, in this case, the Spanish Cat Championships. Sailing under the Spanish sun, as the cream of these cat fleet as always, the A fleet event was won in the Open category by Manuel Calavia ESP 9, and the Classics by the Euro Champ Gustavo Dorreste ESP 78. More on him later.
JUN
Lake Iseo was the venue for the ITA Nationals. The Beautiful Lago d’Iseo, by the way, is the one to the left of Lake Garda. Their host was the ANS club on the South-eastern shores. The largest fleet in the World will always have great competition at it’s events, their Nationals being no different. After a good fight, in some great conditions and a 7 race series, Marco Anessi, ITA 71, became Open Champ and Teo Di Battista, ITA 4 took the Classic mantle.
The GBR Nationals were sailed on the famous Solent, from the Hayling Ferry SC, and sailing just off Portsmouth. Again, a largely Classic fleet joined up with the A-Cat’s cousin, the Unicorn so made a worthwhile 15 or so boat fleet. The unusually pleasant conditions of 10-14 kts made a nice change from the ‘all or nothing’ winds we are now tending to see as a result of changing weather patterns coming from the North Atlantic area. The event saw Hugh MacGregor GBR 18, retain his British crown despite a good challenge from Owen Cox, GBR 77 and the appearance of a 1942 Royal Navy Harbour Defence Launch.
JUL
The SUI association held their Nationals, alongside the ITA fleet at Marvelia Sailing Centre at Dongo on the Western shore of Lake Como. That’s the one to the left of Iseo The Swiss fleet in largely a Foiling fleet, and a five race series over the three days had something for everyone. Wind, no wind, marginal wind, Champaign sailing wind. In the end, Robin Maeder retains his Swiss crown after a ‘win some, lose some’ event.
AUG
Hellecat was the venue for the NED Nationals. Scheduled over 3 days, the first day was canned after mad winds arrived. The next two days the fleets sailed 6 races, as the winds had moderated a little, but still somewhat too fruity for some and several decided not to sail, leaving a 10-boat combined fleet. Mischa Heemskerk, NED 7, retained his Open hat and Sjoerd Hoekstra, NED 3, was the Classic Champ. The interesting thing at this event was the new mast designs used by Mischa and PJ Dwarsluis, NED 27, of which more later.
The same weekend saw the POL Nats at the Klub Żeglarski UKS Navigo, Sopot. This is the Open World Champion’s club, and Kuba used it as part of his World’s match fitness training. The club run the Nationals, as other clubs have, as part of a combined cat event. Kuba showed a clean pair of heels to the Open fleet and has been doing much work on his speed since his World Championship win of 2023. However, his clubmate, Jacek Noetzel, POL1, is back but has changed ‘codes’ as they say in Rugby. He is now a Classic sailor, even though he’d often maintained he’d never go back from a Foiler. But now he has done so, he is finding a turn of speed he never had previously, and on occasions beating Kuba upwind. He became the Classic POL Champion.
And further South, on the beautiful turquoise clear glacial water of Attersee, and the Segleclub Kammersee, the AUT nationals took place amongst the Alpine peaks. As with Denmark, the association benefits from its neighbour to the North, and a handful of Southern German lake sailors joined in their fun, making a respectable 13 boat fleet which included a rogue AUT based Aussie sailor of note. As usual now, the weather made things tricky for the PRO, removing a windless Friday, but the managed to sail 4 Saturday and one Sunday race before it became too blasty to hold more. Wolfgang Klampfer, AUT 6, beat the field with a string of 2nds in an event where each race had a different winner. Scotty Anderson, AUS 31, was runner up.
SEPT
‘Everyone to Punta Ala!’ was the cry. The 2024 Worlds regatta was back being hosted at the Resort of Puntala, since it was last there in 2015. Chalets and encampments hidden in the woods among the dunes, leading to a long sandy beach. This is what drew a record breaking 168 boats were entered, and with a rough 50/50 split between Classic and Open boats and from some 16 National Associations, it was like a wet UN conference out on the water.
On the preceding weekend, the ITA Association held an open meeting, as part of their TT series. This served as the idea warm-up for those who arrived in time. It also gave sailors a chance to compare themselves with each other. It was also an opportunity for the DNA team to test their new bendy DN mast rig designs. These were conceived as a development of the DN Ice-Yacht super-bendy rigs. They used adjustable lower shrouds to dynamically control the mast bend below the hounds to more accurately control the power if the rig. They made a few special masts, similar to a board-sail mast, spiral woven with a similar flexibility and PuntAla was the first time they could actually test them in a really high level fleet and in proper race conditions.
They proved to be ‘Curate’s Egg’ as the British say - Good in parts. They found in certain wind strengths, settings and angles, they were uncatchable, showing amazing speed bursts. However, in others they were less impressive. That was the purpose of the project. They would now go home with much more data. But many of those who saw them remarked on the odd surreal look in action.
The Warmups were won by Mischa in the Open and by Mattheu Verrier, SUI 44 in the Classic.
Now for the headline act.
I won’t retell the story day by day; it’s already in the race reports in various publications and sites. But the event was characterised by an interesting spread of wind and wave conditions, from proper flat borderline 5kt minimum drifting races, right up to the full on 20-21kt, big wave Southern Ocean looking stuff, complete with distant waterspouts and spectacular thunderstorms.
The Classic fleet was characterised by great consistency of the top few sailors, in all these conditions. And it was the quiet Spaniard, Gustavo Doreste who, despite retiring from the first full-on windy race, never scored below a 3rd for the rest of the 7-race series. He managed to keep is closest rival, the World Champion Scotty, behind him by sailing smoothly, unfussily and getting all the calls right to score four bullets, even if he did actually get beaten by the Auld Admiral, Ben Hall, USA 99 in one superlight wind race, much to everyone’s delight.
The Open fleet was a masterclass in boatspeed and getting the corners right. Kuba showed blistering pace at times, making him uncatchable on occasions. He looked noticeably faster that at his first World Championship win, last year in Toulon. Second place sailor, Darren Bundock, AUS 88 was equally as consistent, but just couldn’t match him for speed, particularly in the hot stuff, so Kuba gained his second World title in style.
Also, as an event one evening during the Worlds, four illustrious A-Cat sailors received special honours for major contributions to the class. Ben Hall, Graeme Harbour, Dieter Melcher and Piet Saarberg all received framed signed drawings of them sailing their boats in a touching ceremony.
OCT
In the grim Northern hemisphere, the nights draw in, the clocks go back, and the FRA Nationals happen as usual. Maubuisson is the venue in the South West on Lake d'Hourtin. Scheduled over 4 days, yet again, the weather had been mis-ordered yet again. Wednesday was super light, a race was attempted, but canned. The next day did have some wind, and they managed to quickly get in 4 light wind races as the wind picked up to some 12kts. The next day was rain and windless so they all went to the bar and back in for the regatta meal. The final day was cancelled after the forecast was to be the same, and the sailors elected to call it a day disappointed. The results gained from those 4 races had the two Emmanuels becoming Champions. Le Chapelier in the Classics, and Dode for the Open.
It was also this month that the US honoured a pair of illustrious A-Cat sailors. Ben Hall and Pete Melvin were both inducted into the US Sailing Hall Of Fame, a veritable honour indeed.
That was it for national events for the year. We have sadly lost two other well known sailors from the fleet, besides Mattias. Well known SUI sailor Jacques Valente passed in July, and popular ITA sailor Giorgio Marchetto also passed in November. All are missed.
So that was 2024. A year, as is becoming the trend, marked by many races being disrupted by various weather systems. The 'all or nothing' weather has become a sad feature as the climate changes, and this may well determine the event timings or formats in future years. But it is also a year that has witnessed the largest ever turnout of the A-Cat at a single event, and anyone who witnessed this will have it etched into their memories forever. We have renewed old friendships, changed boats, recruited new sailors. There were no standout technical advances this year, other than the interesting experiments by PJ, Mischa and the DNA team. Subtle small changes, such as tweaking sail shapes, mast adjustments and the like have kept the fleets current and competitive. The A-Cat looks to be arguably pretty much at the top of the tree for small single handed sailboats speed-wise too, although evidence is largely apocryphal as no official speed records exist for the class, we would welcome data if anyone has anything firm.
And finally, it was the year we had a Presidential change. Charles Bueche, who had helmed the IACA all through of the twin fleet category allocations, and getting it officially adopted by World Sailing, all through the storms of COVID and successfully into calmer waters. He stepped aside and Bailey White, the former IACA Sec stepped into his big shoes. We would all like to extend our grateful thanks, as a class to Charles for all his work and diplomatic guidance and support, and we hugely look forward to supporting Bailey in his tenure in the role.
Next year we have the European Championships, at Riccione, ITA in June and the Worlds at Auckland, NZL in November. We look forward to seeing you there!
Have a great 2025 you lovely people!
Photos.
Maria knoll, Gordon Upton - guppypix.com, Thomas Paasch, ADECAT, Swiss A-Cat Assn. And others uncredited.
