Ashby favourite for AUS A-cat nationals on DNA (updated)

(c) Ashby sails (taken form his website)

Tomorrow 2011 starts with the start of the AUS nationals. 18 DNA's will take part. Glenn, Stevie, Landy, James, Darren, Dean, Brad and many others will sail on their new DNA's.

Rumours go that Glenn is the fastest guy on the water.The DNA's outpace the other boats.

Although there are new boats, new mast and new sails the expected podium candidates are still the old names. My prediction is 1. Glenn Ashby 2. Stevie Brewin 3. Andrew Landenberger 4. Brad Collet 5. Darren Bundock 6.James Spithill 7. Dean Barker

Dean Barker did a lot of training with Glenn and he is the outsider for a podium place. Battle for third will be very tough. Stevie will not be fastest upwind but will be fast downwind as he always is. The heavier guys need to be really away at the first mark if they want to beat Stevie.

Darren will be fast although he might lack hours on the water on the DNA, if he gets his DNA up to speed he might threaten Stevie.

Andrew and Brett will be very fast upwind with their new sails but we have to wait to see if they can match Glenn and Stevie downwind.

I am curious how soon Dean is up to speed after Glenn's coaching and sparring with Glenn and some others.

Glenn wil be superfast both upwind and downwind as he will have more control over his new rig than he had over his previous 2010 rig. He is the clear favourite and the battle behind him will be very tough where the whole top ten might be very close.

Boat handling will make a difference, because gybing coming form the trapeze will need quite some practice to master, that's were Brad and other early users might have an advantage.

It will be interesting to see how many DNA's will trapeze downind and when that will be competitive. In Spain Manolo already is competitive in that style with 10-12 knots.

Good luck to all competitors or Mast und Schotbruch as our German friends say.

Last day of the Year of the Cat

2010 has been a great year for multihulls.

First we had the AC battle between Alinghi and BMW-Oracle which transformed the sailing scene.

Before this event the multihulls were not really accepted by the traditional (read ISAF) scene. A resentment against multihulls which already emerged at the appearance of the first multihull racer The Amaryllis of Herreshoff in 1876!

In 2011 multihulls will be the norm and half boats will be considered as the dinosaurs of our sport.

2010 has also been the breakthrough of the C-board cats, both the DNA and the new Nacra  20 were very succesful and all doubt about the curved boards has been blown away.

March 2011 is the closing date for AC34. Although Cup itself will take place in 2013, the activities of the syndicates on smaller cats will be great for the promotion of small racing cats.

Any sailor can use the same stuff as Glenn, James or Dean.

Happy New Year to all followers of this blog!

DNA colours

 The boats of Micky (white), Juanjo (white), Benjamin (black), Tjibbe (red), Jan Willem (Silver)

 The blue one of Bob

Benjamin's, Tjibbe's (Torreador Red), Jan Willem's (Silver metallic)

You can order a DNA in almost any colour. See the colour card at the Awlgrip site

New DNA graphics

 

In these drawings you can easily see the curved boards and the hight aspect ratio rig of an A-class cat.

Advanced Racing Catamarans one year!

Exactly one year ago PJ and I took the plunge and became boatbuilders.

Just before Christmas we decided to design, build and market our own A-class.

We had a vision that in the best scenario possiible we could sell and build 40 A-cats the first year.

Yesterday I picked up boat 40, Bob's navy blue DNA, at Yachtpainting Lelystad!

So far we have only delivered platforms to the A-class incrowd and some America's cup sailors.

Coming year we will start to deliver complete boats, which is needed to attract sailors from outside the A-cat scene.

We believe that the A-class has the potential to become the most popular single handed international class.

Merry Christmas!

Arno & PJ

Press release AUS Nationals

2010/11 Australian Titles , International A Class Catamarans.

The quiet Queensland lakeside village of Boreen Point, on the shores of Lake Cootharaba will take on a busy ,and International ambience during the first week of January, when a fleet of between 60 and 70 A Class Catamarans compete in their National championships.

A strong homegrown Australian fleet will be supplemented by an influx of at least 10 International competitors, many of whom are associated with America's Cup Teams and new to catamaran racing. Many of the aspiring America's Cup competitors are eager to gain multihull experience and learn the "seat of the trapeze " elements that can be gained by sailing the high performance and technologically advanced 18 foot A Class.

With sailing currently in hibernation within the ice flows of the northern hemisphere winter , a number of sailors from both Europe and the United States will seek out the warm waters and summer seabreezes of south eastern Queensland, and pit their skills against the hot Australian Fleet. Glenn Ashby, Steve Brewin and Jack Benson from Australian are the A Class current gold Standard ,having taken out the top three places in the 2010 World Championships held in Cesenatico, Italy, in July.

A number of Australia's foremost International catamaran sailing sons including Darren Bundock, Mitch Booth, and James Spitall will also be returning to our shores to compete in these championships.

The internationalisation of the Australian Titles began in 2009, when James Spithall, Mike Drummond, John Kosteki, and Noel Drennan, from the Oracle America's Cup group, found themselves with a few weeks hiatus in their America's Cup training schedule, and were encouraged by their coach Glenn Ashby to try their hand National titles in Safety Beach, Victoria. Apparently they very much enjoyed the thrills, the skills ,and new challenges of driving the boats.

It seems that the A Class and the America's Cup will feed off one another, with an interflow of personnel ,and exchange of technologies.

The interesting A Class platform to emerge in 2010 is the Dutch designed and built boat known as the DNA. This boat features curved centreboards, and a very rigid composite construction that features a little more volume than usual in the rear, and it is said to be very fast downwind. The World Titles were inconclusive in evaluating the design as the winds were usually less than 6 knots, but the design went on to win the Swiss, Dutch and German Titles. Will it add an Australian Title to its Curriculum Vitae ? The probabilty is good as 18 of these boats will be competing, and will be sailed by most of the top guns.

Article by Bob Griffits

Loick and Bruno Peyron training on their DNAs for AC72 campaign



Loick & Bruno Peyron ready to rock (pic by Jean Marie Liot)

Loick, Arno & Bruno at Delivery in Le Pouliguen (La Baule )(pic by Jean Marie Liot)



Boys with new toys, ready to go out (pic by Jean Marie Liot)



Drifting in no wind at zero degrees (pic by Jean Marie Liot)




Loick playing with his DNA (pic by Jean Marie Liot)



Last Friday I delivered two boats to Bruno and Loick Peyron at the CNBPP, one of France's most beautiful located clubs at the Atlantic coast. They are in the process of launching another French America's Cup Challenge.

It is good to see guys which such a long and succesful track record in big multihulls enter both the A-class and the next America's cup.

It is another example how this Cup has a positive effect on the whole sport. We see A-cat sailors who join the AC syndicates, we see AC heroes enter the A-class and we see offshore around the world multihull sailors step on small boats and inshore AC multihulls.

I had very interesting discussions both with Bruno and Loick about developments in the big cats, the ORMA tris and other boats.  So were the curved foils introduced by Loick in the ORMA tris many years before these showed up  in the A-class. What really surprised me that there seems so little difference in their way to seek performance gains compared to what we do in the A-class and that the same lessons were learned despite the scale factor.

The challenges  in terms of amount of rocker, C-foils, volume, etc,  of an A-class designer appear to be not that different from a AC72 hull designer or a ORMA ama designer.

Before my visit to them I was convinced that we could not scale up the DNA to an AC72 as the crew in an AC72 does not weigh 7000 kgs (in A-class crew is usually heavier than the boat of 75kgs). The opposite might be true...

I think that these brothers have the talent and the knowledge to create a team that can develop, build and sail a competitive A72. They will use another design approach than the older teams wich I am convinced will be very succesful as no other team can rival  them in empirical data about big multihulls.

It will be good for the sport and his country if Bruno will find the extra funding he needs for the campaign before the start of the AC45 cycle in March 2011.