For many of us, 2023 was a somewhat frustrating year. A combination of global warming changing weather patterns, with cost of living and fuel increases, saw a few European events cancelled or having lower than expected turnouts. The curse of the internet, whereby some sailors tend now to only make the call to attend an event less than a week before, after deciding if it’s ‘their weather’ is now also a big factor, and this knock-on effect for clubs mean that fewer of them are prepared to take a punt to put in the effort and mobilise their volunteers into organising an event.

President Charles has scheduled the IACA ballot to be sent, as for Constitution §11, after the WGM vote.

If you are a National Association member, you should get this email soon, and if not, check your spam folders.

The mail is from the address 'iacavoting@gmail.com', the mail subject - IACA ballot : Modification of class rules to allow for any kind of trapeze harness.

There is a new discount code for those wishing to book accommodation at PuntAla, but missed the special Earlybird pricing.

These new price deals are valid until Feb 29th, and available for bookings to stay any time from Aug. 29th to the 15th Sept 2024.

Click Here to go to the booking page.

There will be an official Italian National Regatta at PuntAla on 31st Aug - 1st Sept 2024.

This means that you can get a warm-up event the weekend before the Worlds and check out the opposition! You can also book you accommodation accordingly.

This Winter the Spanish A-Class Association would like to offer all A Cat Sailors the possibility of joining them for sailing, training and racing during the Winter. Their water temperature is never below 14 degrees. Vlad, the Czech ace, has already spent two winters with them, and Matti from Finland was there last Winter. Both are repeating this year!

They are offering sailing in Valencia, training and some races.

The Punta Ala 2024 A-Cat Worlds registration link and the official website are now open - Here

The Minutes of the 2023 WQGM are now available - here http://www.a-cat.org/sites/default/files/2023_WGM_minutes_v5.pdf

In 1986 at Brenzone, Italy, a 32 year old Aussie sailor and Olympic medallist, won the A-Cat Worlds. 37 years later he does it again in Toulon. John Scott Anderson is living proof of the saying ‘There is still life in the old dog yet!’. Also a new name arrears on the A-Cat Open fleet trophy. Here is how it happened.

After yesterday’s excitement in Toulon, today was only going to be a bit of a let-down. There was the now traditional stop in the boat park instruction. It was the Open foilers to go on first, and many had their super high aspect ratio rigs already fully set up on their 9m tall carbon masts. There were instructions, under pain of death, that they must not pass through the entry gate onto the beach launching area unless they were fully ready to sail and dressed for the water. With 120 boats and a finite beach area, this was a very sensible policy from the Yacht Club du Toulon.

I’m sorry, but Epic can be an overused word. But that is possibly the only word we can use to describe the events on Toulon Bay yesterday. And to think, it all started so serenely too.