Following the traumatic events of Day 1 of the ‘A’ Cat Worlds at WPNSA, the sailors were keen to at least attempt to recover some of the losses many of them suffered at the hands of the light stuff yesterday.  Monday started light and windless, bringing concerned glances. The AP was up and the fleets were held ashore.  First to sail would be the Classic fleet this time.

The first day at the Worlds at WPNSA was, to say the least, challenging. We all knew the racing was not going to happen in the morning as the day dawned hot and sunny.  And windless.  The PRO, David Campbell-James, broke the news to everyone at the daily 9:30 breifing that there would probably be at least a 2 hr postponement.  Everyone then set about sitting about.  Chatting about settings, looking at stuff in the popup shop and drinking coffee.  The sun was hot and the academy, being concreat and hardstanding became rather warm.

Practice races are funny things, especially at a World Championships.  Sailors, being a superstitious lot at the best of time, are especially prone to strange rituals, tend to treat it as a semi race, pretending the result doesn’t matter.  However, psychologically is must be better to your mental preparation if you do well.  The top sailors, who have experience of many really big events, have strategies for coping with this, and particularly when things go wrong, but those lower down the fleet can get spooked if things don’t go to plan.  

The second day of racing at the GBR Nationals brought much lighter conditions, 7-8 knots was the form. This also created wind holes in parts of the course, and together with wind shifts, created conditions more familiar to lake sailors.  Often though, a sea breeze can develop in the afternoons here, but today it would added maybe a knot or two this time.

After two days of not sailing due to high wind limits, the thoroughbred competitors of the GBR Nationals, or Britnats, as the Aussies call it, where starting to get rather twitchy.  But on day 3, Weymouth finally delivered, albeit with a few jellyfish the size of dustbins floating around, having blown in during the previous few days South Westerly storms.

How many times do you hear ‘ Ooh, it’s not normally like this here!’ when you get to regattas?  The 2019 Worlds warm up event, the GBR Nationals, started with a bang.  In fact, a rather too big a bang in fact.  

The SIs are now published on the official event website here

Big Puffs in Sopot.  Michael Korneszczuk roports on the POL Nationals, their last event before the big one.

As we all learnt at 2017 Worlds UKS Navigo hospitality is great. It was no different during freshly finished A-Class Polish Nationals. 

A-class event Hellecat 27-28th of July - Rutger Krijger reports.

A rather depressing weather forecast after a week with temperatures of up to 40 degrees and good winds did not enthuse everyone and made several sailors decide to stay at home for this year’s third Dutch A-class event at the flat water foiling Valhalla in Hellevoetsluis.