Ronstan A-Cat Worlds - Fifth title for Glenn Ashby

by Tom Siders on 17 Nov 2007
Racing conditions for the last day of the 2007 Ronstan A-Cat World Championship turned out to be pretty severe. The event that was building up to be a 'Clash of Champions' on the final day of racing has been decided by a blow out, the wind that is.

Congratulations to Glenn Ashby, Lars Guck, Pete Melvin, Luc DuBois, Mitch Booth, Charlie Ogletree, Scotty Anderson, Murray Philpott, Andrew Landenberger, and Eugenio Calabria who were the Top 10 finishers in this event.

A frontal system passed over the Florida Keys last night and the breeze picked up to over 25 knots just after 03:00EST. This strong breeze refused to abate throughout the morning. Buoy and land station reports were coming in at 22-29 knots, with gusts in the 30+ range for most of the morning.

In the end the decision was based upon keeping the racers and their boats safe. Even though this was a real blow to all of the competitors who had raced each other hard all week, keeping themselves in contention throughout the regatta, the OA made an outstanding call putting the safety of the sailors, their boats and all of the officials first and preventing the possible carnage that racing might have incurred.

Throughout this regatta, one looked for a break through in design and performance, but in the end it came down to proven the proven winners, sailing on proven platforms with proven sails.

Lars Guck, Pete Melvin and Pease Glaser were sailing on Morreli & Melvin Nacra A3’s with Glaser sails and Glenn Ashby on his Ashby Sailcraft-Geltek Flyer with Ashby sails. One only has to take a look at the top 20 to see that it matches very closely the list of those who are the top 20 in the class. These are by far the best, most competitive sailors from around the world in this class of catamarans.

The competition was close, tight and sometimes even contentious, but in the end Glenn showed his mastery and confidence when it counted the most, taking both of Thursday’s races to win the regatta by two points.

This regatta featured some fine performances and great sailing throughout the regatta by many sailors. One of the finest moments of the regatta came with Pease Glaser’s light air win on Wednesday and Lars Guck’s last minute tack to catch a fresh shift moving him from a 5th place finish to 2nd.

Pete Melvin sailed a great regatta all week struggling only in the sixth race with a nineth place finish. Charlie Ogletree also had a strong sixth place finish coming off his remarkable come-back at the US Olympic trials. Fifth place went to Mitch Booth who sailed a consistent regatta with a twefth place discard.

The competition off the water was stiff too. It began with the All Texan Bash thrown by the Texas contingent on Saturday. This featured a full on Texas BBQ with Shiner Beer, the New England and Annapolis came back with a dinner of Black Beans & Rice, Dry Rubbed Chicken and Rum Punch and on Thursday the Canadians responded with a Bar room style Deli with Molson Golden flowing freely.

While all good sailors are swayed by rum and free flowing beer, the Texan Bash won the event, but a great time was enjoyed by all during each event.

A-Class - Leading results (98 entries) 7 races completed, 1 discard:

1   AUS 1       ASHBY, GLENN   1   3   1   2   [4]   1   1   9.00   pts
2   USA 250       GUCK, LARS   2   1   [3]   1   2   2   3   11.00   pts
3   USA 69       MELVIN, PETE   [10]   2   2   3   3   9   4   23.00   pts
4   SUE 202       DU BOIS, LUC   13   5   5   6   [23]   6   2   37.00   pts
5   NED 250       BOOTH, MITCH   6   4   10   [12/RDG]   5   7   7   39.00   pts
6   USA 269       OGLETREE, CHARLIE   8   [15]   8   5   6   15   5   47.00   pts
7   AUS 2       ANDERSON, SCOTTY   5   5/RDG   [35]   8   22   4   6   50.00   pts
8   NZL 232       PHILPOTT, MURRAY   7   4/RDG   14   [20]   18   13   17   73.00   pts
9   AUS 308       LANDENBERGER, ANDREW   12   17   12   7   [27]   16   9   73.00   pts
10   ITA 2       CALABRIA, EUGENIO   11   7   18   [33]   21   8   12   77.00   pts
11   USA 257       DANIEL, ROBBIE   21   [22]   16   12   7   10   11   77.00   pts
12   USA 110       KINDER, PHILIP   15   10   11   [27]   10   17   14   77.00   pts
13   NED 3       HOEKSTRA, SJOERD   3   12   [65]   41   14   3   10   83.00   pts
14   NZL 234       DRUMMOND, MIKE   17   16   17   9   [32]   12   25   96.00   pts
15   USA 232       ATKINS, CHAD   14   9   28   [40]   15   14   16   96.00   pts
16   USA 209       COPE, WOODY   24   19   [40]   21   9   11   18   102.00   pts
17   USA 280       GLASER, PEASE   [44]   42   4   18   1   29   13   107.00   pts
18   USA 234       GAYNOR, ANDREW   23   [41]   7   17   39   18   15   119.00   pts
19   USA 258       COGAN, PETER   18   [37]   15   19   16   28   26   122.00   pts
20   SWE 1       MARSTROM, GORAN   22   28   [33]   15   11   25   22   123.00   pts
21   USA 259       SMYTH, RANDY   [99/DNC]   32   21   13   12   30   21   129.00   pts

Development Matters

In the lead up to this event in a highly competitive development class, much has been made of the differences in the boats, masts and rigs. I personally have been at the forefront of publicizing much of this side of the event. To me, this was great, the A-cat Worlds each year is a great event, but all of these new platforms, sails, masts and design differences added another dimension and more depth to the story.

While some of the boats were the next version or iteration of a previous design, two or three stood out for their ingenuity or audacity.

Ben Hall’s by far was the most intriguing and beguiling of the bunch. While others focused on the platform, rudders or dagger boards, Ben went after the 'engine' of the boat. Early in the year, Ben had a long conversation with C-class guru, A-cat sailor and man behind Vanguard sailboats, Steve Clark, about rigid wing sails.

With this conversation behind him, he teamed up with a designer and developed his wing. Along with the wing, Ben also teamed with designer Peter Cogan, and built a new boat that is an evolution of the proven XJ platform. The boat and wing were launched in early September, leaving the critical training & tuning time short for the Worlds.

Ben put as much time on the water in Bristol as well as attending the Lake Hopatcong Fall Classic regatta in hopes of getting up to speed with his new wing. While it is clear that this wing or an evolution of it show great promise, he was not fully dialed in to it during this regatta.

Ben and the Rigid Wing were blisteringly fast off the wind and downwind with it, sometimes passing 3-4 boats between the windward and offset marks (approximately 150m). Going to weather is where he seems to have difficulty getting it tunes and performing well. Ben finished in the top third of the fleet, but one has to wonder where he would have finished if he had been sailing this for the last 12 months.

The radical departure in hull design was the LR2, designed by Richard Roake and built by John Lindahl. This platform features torpedo shaped bows with true wave-piercing characteristics. This platform was sailed at the regatta by randy Smyth, Ian Lindahl and Fred Smyth. Randy’s featured a boomless main that he designed for the regatta that featured a swept-up square-top that gave it more initial power, reduced the overall drag and had the ability to twist off easier at the top. In addition, he added a small sweeper to the base to straighten out the flow.

There were 3-4 more new platforms at the regatta, the new Marström M5, the Tool, the Schuerer Generation 5 and then the proven platforms. The two that rose to the top were the Morreli & Melvin Nacra A3 and the Ashby Sailcraft Geltek MKII featuring the latest generation of Glaser and Ashby Sails respectively.

As the Organizing Authority and the core group of people who have been wor