Ronstan US midwinter championship

DNA's doing well in Ronstan US midwinter championship

Ben Moon, Bruce Mahony and Bob Hodges finished 1,2,3 in the 28 boat fleet in Florida

Not much of an report yet , we are waiting for some more info .

results at :

https://www.regattatech.com/events/DIYC/AClass12/scoring/showResultsRoster

Cat in the Olympics

Many polls on the internet to see what boat should be selected or what boat will be selected.

From a sailors point of view the Viper, the Nacra 17 and the Tornado are worthy candidates.

The Tornado does not really suit ISAF's criteria but should not be overlooked, The Viper has proven itself over the last 2 years and the Nacra 17  fills a gap with its curved boards.

It is interesting to see that manufacturers like NACRA ad AHPC push their boats for the Olympic bid. I fail to see how they think they will benefit from becoming an Olympic class. The new Olympic class will be a micro class with just a few topsailors  which will eventually drive all clubsailors out of the class.

The Viper class does pretty well on its own and will probably grow bigger without Olympic Status.

The Nacra 17 is aimed at a mixed crew, so I expect her design crew weight to be under that of an F18. If it becomes Olympic it will hurt the F18 less than some would expect as it is not meant to be an alternative for the F18.

Unfortunately catsailors have not the last vote about 'their' Olympic cat. The mixed in mixed multihull is silly as it is, but predicting what boat it will be asks for some advanced 'Kremlin watching'.

As multihull community we are still overlooked by the ISAF as the ISAF is dominated by countries (MNA's as they are called) who have invested in the more traditional classes. ISAF did a good job with the 49'er and a women's skiff is another step but ISAF should have become more high performance oriented and have either selected Multihull open or both a men's boat and a women' boat (I prefer open).

The Tornado has been bashed within the ISAF for the wrong reasons, it was an expensive boat but one should look at the cost of a complete campaign and the T's were durable and up to their task.

I hope that the Viper is not selected and that F16 class embraces its simplicity (and its minimum weight). An F16 class with an 130 kg limit will be thriving and attract many new manufacturers. There is room for such a class and I hope the class will blossom. As catamaran community we will grow due to the new sailors we attract of which many will be yougnsters.

Selecting the T, will hurt no existing class, but it will not attract many new sailors to catsailing either.

The Nacra 17 as Olympic class might wake up the F18 class, which may not longer be considered a box rule class. Too many silly restriction as we saw on the sailcloth gate and silly things as minimum weight for complete rudders.

I think that the F18 should allow curved boards else it might become obsolete as so many standard classes before. It's minimum weight should not drop too much. It is great that both the Viper and the F18 can be durable boats built in low cost materials. Carbon F16's and F18's would cost over 30.000 euros which will introduce a pretty steep entry barrier for new sailors.

There is a realistic chance that either the Hobie 16 or Hobie Tiger will be selected. This will not hurt us as a community but will make Olympic sailing hardly relevant for us. As said before, we get more excited about the America's cup and much less about Olympic sailing. We should not forget though that many of our cat heroes did do Olympic campaigns (Bundock, Ashby, Outerridge, Slingsby, Lange, etc).

As beach cat community we are pretty small compared to the windsurf community and the kiteboard community. I hope that we can  attracct many new sailors to our sport by offering them interesting classes and exciting boats. (F18, F16, A-class). 

As A-class we might profit from the turmoil in F18 and F16 class in the short run but in the long run we need those classes as well to be a blossomming community.

ISAF does little to popularize our sport and does not really promote high perfomance sailing. I hope that the AC can attract a big audience and that the (youngs) viewers will find their way to beach cats.

Two years Advanced Racing Catamarans

December 2009 PJ and I started Advanced Racing Catamarans. Easter 2010 we introduced the DNA in Cesenatico. This Easter we will have sold and delivered DNA number 100. We are doing 50 boats a year now and are very happy with the support we got from so many sailors. Our aim was to make a competive A-cat available within the A-cat community and to attract new sailors to that community.

We succeeded with the first part but I think that we can and should attract more new sailors.

The pro sailors have discovered us now, but apart from some Moth sailors we do not attract many from other classes. We do think that the A-cat is the ideal boat for many others. It is a simple boat, very refined and suitable for both the pro and the middle aged clubracer.

People who sail a Finn or Laser could sail an A-cat as well. It is even suitable for the sporty yachty who spends now a fortune on his boat and crew while he could have more fun with less effort on a DNA. Perhaps we should tell others more about our love for the A-cat and its wonderful simplicity.

The latter both in rigging the boat and sailing it. We hear that people are afraid that they will not be very competitive but what we see is that a good helsman becomes competitive pretty quickly. You do not have to be James Spithill or Dean Barker to sail an A-cat smoothly. 

As a company we want it to make easier for sailors to buy ready to play boats, that's why we will start making our own masts and will offer trailers as well.

As a company our aim is to sell at least 80 boats every year, this will lead to a more continuous production with lower costs and higher quality.

One objective is to double the installed base of A-cats in Europe within 3-5 years.

When we started we thought that we could make even cheaper boats due to declining carbon prices. What we underestimated was the amount of money needed to setup a state of the art composites factory. Tooling costs are significant and with our tooling we can make 200 hundred boats per year as well.

The first 2 years of a be company are not the easiest, financial pressures and time connstraints were huge.

Life is improving though, I will sail more races this year and we have a great crew of motivated boat builders. PJ and I are less bothered by operational stress and can put more effort now in promoting the class and the boat.

We welcome input from sailors  about product improvement and product innovation. The class remains a development class and we are happy to learn from others.

Right now my garden is full of snow and the Dutch people are only talking about ice skating, but I am longing to go on the water again and do some serious trapezing downwind.

CU all on the water soon.