ABYC was the venue for the successful 2012 F18 Worlds. Now the Club will organize the A-Class North Americans. The A-Cat US fleet managed to host a 120 boat World Championship at Isla Morada last year, now it is time to cross the country to race at a perfect sailing spot location like Long Beach.

Report by Guido Schulte // Schweriner Cat - Cup 2013 Clear win for Thomas Paasch
"The start-up of the season for the Baltic A-Class community took place on Schweriner See, a reasonbly sized beautiful lake, 30 km south of Wismar and a traditional hot spot for racing sailors of many classes. However, the The A-class joined this Regatta for the first time after several years of absence, and a surprising number of 19 competitors from Poland, Denmark and Germany showed up.

51 entries already for the French Nats to be held at Hyeres. The French Class Association is growing strong and two local new built boats, by Dorian le Pluart and the Addiction, are a good sign of what is going on at their home waters. Also we might see Raphael Censier racing with his home built A.

Entry List www.afcca.org/jy-vais/
More info and NOR at http://ducdalbe.oxatis.com
French Assoc http://www.afcca.org/

Nice initiative on the three Alpine A-Class associations to run together their Nats at Lake Constance on 17-20  organized by the Yacht Club Rheindelta and the Austrian Assoc. Image from the great A-Class Shortfilm by Johannes Obermaier  and produced by Catarina Jentzsch for the German A-Class.  If you haven't seen it yet do it now ,  as it is the best sailing short film ever made.
Full NOR attached below.

The new D3 A-Cat by D3 & Scheurer Design is progressing towards a near launch. The boat is being built at a renown Frecnch boat yard, http://www.cdk-technologies.com. Ben Moon has been racing quite well past seasons and right now is dominating the US fleet. He will be one of D3 riders for the Europeans.
More info at http://www.d3-a-cat.com/

Report from Chris about the first UK event at Datchet
1st event of 2013 On the weekend of the 16 th & 17th March the British AClass association
held the first Ranking event of 2013. It was hosted by Datchet Water Sailing Club on a reservoir next to Heathrow airport.
The fleet had 3 new boats racing along with the regular competitors including myself sailing the new VISION from CatamaranParts.nl and a new Hammer sail.

Good sailing skills still rules in the class, and you can be competitive with boats not being produced in 2013. Two Flyers I raced by Landy & Brad were 2nd & 3rd, only 3 points from Andy Williams DNA. And they were even at mid event.

Report from the DNA camp:
"With one race to spare Sjoerd has already taken the crown. With 2 firsts and a second today the outclassed the competition.
PJ (3 and 5) and Arno( 4 and 2) did well the last two races as well in the 15-16 knots of breeze.

In the last race Sjoerd did beat Arno by 1 second. In the lighter stuff PJ and Arno were still a bit rusty this early in the season, but once they can do the wild thing they are in the front too. All three of them sailed on a 2013 DNA with the J-boards.

The 4th regatta of the US A-Class winter/spring series, The Admiral's Cup, was sailed March 22-24 at  Davis Island Yacht Club in Tampa. DIYC also hosted last month's RONSTAN Midwinter Championship which was the 2nd event of the series. The COCONUT GROVE SAILS AND CANVAS Invitational and Intergalactic Regattas were sailed in January at THE ISLANDER resort in Islamorada, FL and were events 1 and 2.

39th Edition for the Vele di Pasqua regatta, organized by Congrega Velisti Cesenatico.
41 Entries . NOR and more info at http://www.congregavelisti.it/anno%202013/Vele%20di%20Pasqua%202013%20p…

Check also some great images from past editions at http://www.facebook.com/pages/VELE-DI-Pasqua-2013/167111813325728
Above 2012 Image by Eva Fagnoli.