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

The playing is over at the PredictWind A-Cat Worlds, and the race committees are tuned like fine violins.  The wonderful volunteer shore crews are poised like greyhounds in the slips, for it’s all stations to general quarters!, on Tuesday.  Then the next 6 days of racing will be full on action, with both Classic fleet and Open fleet doing what they are here for.  Finished are the leisurely Chicken Carbonara or steak lunches upstairs in the bar/restaurant of the wonderful Milton Cruising Club, the sitting around on beanbags, or in deckchairs eating delicious pies or exquisitel

The final playday before the racing events kick off on Castor Bay was a pleasant one for most.  @PredictWind had the winds pretty much spot on again with 6-8kts.  A few sustained puffs up to 11kts here and there, and a NNE direction, which is onshore here.  Out in their chosen training zone there developed the expected short chop as the wind over tide conditions pushed waves up to half a metre or so, but nothing they can’t handle. 

Our headline sponsor at the PredictWind A-Cat Worlds 2025 had got it pretty much bang on in Thursday’s forecast.  A nice 12-13 kts NNE out on Castor Bay and slowly falling throughout the afternoon.  But, the wind over tide again created a chop on the water much larger than the wind deserved, and half meter short frequency waves made for lumpy riding out to the middle of the bay in a RIB with a fat bloke on board plus his 12kg of kit. But this was the area favoured by the sailors for their practice/setup/mode testing/playpen area.

Yesterday, out on the bay, only a handful of sailors went out.  It was the ‘Usual Suspects’ of Kuba Surowiec, POL41, Jacek Noetzel, POL1, Michal Korneszczuk, POL111, Emmanuel Dode, FRA2 and Dave Shaw, NZL 270 who just can’t see a body of water without needing to be on it.    But now joined by Valdek Kwasniewski, POL 120, David Haylock NZL284 and Lamberto Cesari ITA13.  But they’d forgotten to book a suitable wind, so initially stooged about in sub minimal conditions of 3-4kts, with the odd 5kt blast, all coming from the NNE.  The sea state was benign, with a slight

Tuesday at the Milford Cruising club saw more sailors arriving and getting their boats set up.  Rolling about on the grass underneath them, occasionally emitting profanities so extreme that birds literally burst into flame mid flight, as they drop a split pin into their eyeball or discover that their take-away bungee comes from the wrong side of that rope.