2011 Ronstan A Class Catamaran World Championship - the Aftermath

In August 2011, Sailing Aarhus hosted the World Championships for the A Cat class at the Kaløvig Sailing Center by the Bay of Aarhus. The class currently has an entry limit of 100 boats and all spots sold out well before the event. However, there were few no shows, so actually there were 96 boats on the water.
On the media side, this year's A-Cat World Championship raised to its highest level so far in class. There was news on facebook, live tweets during races, live GPS tracking of all participants in all races and in the last 3 days there were also live video streaming from the race course with Aussi Punchy Benson as a vivid commentator..
The website had more than 19,000 unique visitors and over 70,000 page views during the event. Each visitor has on average been 5:24 minutes on site, and this counts up till about 1,750 hours or 72 days of continuous exposure! The visits came from a total of 77 different countries.
Racing conditions were absolutely not typical August weather in Aarhus Bay. It was cold, sometimes rainy and the wind was driven by fronts and heavy clouds, which constantly gave changing wind direction and strength. It was not only challenging for the sailors, but also a challenge to the race management. Principle Race Officer Andreas Kuchler (DEN) managed it with a firm hand, and he pulled off some really good races and straight starting lines. The first race however, had to be interrupted due to a wind shift of 90 degree.
A big thank you to Sailing Aarhus and Kaløvig Sailing Center for organizing the 2011Ronstan A Class Catamaran World Championship and for their efforts by using social media, gps-tracking and live video streaming in a way that make our sport more viewable and understandable.