It is with great sadness that we must report the passing of another A-Cat legend, known to a great many of us. Matthias Dietz was a beloved and gentle character for many years on both the German and European circuits. His immense knowledge of all things, ranging from the 1970's Le Mans Porsche 917 breaking systems that he worked on as an engineer, up to how he sets his rig up for those light airs, of which he was one of the Kings.

Book the dates - 7th-14th June.
A-Cat Euros 2025, Spiaggia 151 Riccione, Italy

More details to follow!

It gives us great pleasure to introduce Matilde Delaite to the IACA team. Mathilde will be looking after our Instagram account and helping to spread the A-Cat love across that platform, so hopefully engaging a few new sailors to join us.

I was reflecting on the class and where it could want to be heading recently, when I realised the question that we get asked frequently when someone is expressing an interest in our lovely boats is - I’m looking at getting an A-Cat, but what type should I go for? It is usually met with the first question from us, and we must assume that they have at least done a little research, and discovered that we have 2 categories within our class, so it’s do you want an Open or a Classic?

OFFICIAL - The 2025 A-Cat Worlds will be held at Manly Sailing Club, North Island, New Zealand. Dates - 8th-16th November 2025.

We can now look forward enormously to this event, at the club where no lesser sailor than Russel Coutts is Commodore, so we hope as many as possible can come over join in the party in Aeoteroa, the 'Land Of The Long White Cloud'!

The final day of a regatta can be a strange one. Sometimes, it all comes down to the last race as in the Toulon Worlds, and sometimes the last downwind leg of that race too, as we saw in Houston. On other occasions, the frontrunner is already decided and can afford to not even race as the discard would take care of the points gained for a DNR. Today was such an event. Both Scotty Anderson and Adam Beattie had the championship sewn up probably 2 races ago. So, some choose not to race and give someone else their chance of a bullet.

The penultimate day at the AUS A-Cat Nationals as another fun day on the lake. Although the predicted wind didn’t seem to come up to the promise of 2 kts more that yesterday, it was still an acceptable 8-11 knots. A nice clear blue sky also helped too. 2 races were scheduled for today, leaving a single race on Friday morning. As a result, because the standings overnight were the way they were, it was a fair chance that at least one fleet would see their Champion emerge unless something untoward happened.

Day three, out on the lake, was when the place finally delivered what the locals were used to. The Australian A-Cat Nationals saw Easterly breezes, at about 13-14 knots and, coupled with a blue sky arriving on que, it was Aussie Sparkling Wine sailing at last. Coming into the day, the Race Officer had already achieved a championship, with 6 races completed. He was by now, nicely on track to complete a full series of 12 races, where the much desired second discards would arrive.

The second day out on Lake Macquarie, and the AUS 2024 A-Class Cat Nationals saw the wind 180 deg to yesterday. The scheduled start time of 11.00 was, for some reason not fully communicated to me, was pushed back to 13.00. No matter, the fleet just sat about and talked more, and it allowed this correspondent to get his reports done earlier, so every cloud, as they say. However, looking back, it did mean that the fleet actually missed out on the hour of the best breeze of the day.