Rule 8. The A-Class Future.
It's time we repigeoned the Cattery
Arguably, the four most chilling words a man can hear are ‘We need to talk...’
But that is what we must do to ensure the future of the A-Class Cat, to ensure it does not get itself into an evolutionary dead end after 50+ years of innovative development.
Recently, a number of high profile designers, together with several of the top sailors in our class, have expressed a desire for a clear, balanced, intelligent and informed discussion of the real facts and of the various available options regarding the future development of the A-Class catamaran.
It was interesting to note, that at Punta Ala, nearly everyone who expressed an opinion when spoken to, seemed in favour of keeping rule 8 as it was, yet the National Associations as a whole voted 66.34% to remove it. (66.66% was needed to overturn.) Now this may be explained by the fact that only the topmost skilled and fastest sailors attend the Worlds, and hence their opinion would naturally be more skewed in favour of something giving them a practical and competitive advantage on the racecourse. But the question to be asked is, do the rank and file association members, the real A-Cat enthusiasts, have all the information about the pros and cons to make a proper decision?
The Punta Ala vote had the effect of stabilising the class for a while, but has really just kicked the problem into the long grass. There is nothing to stop any association from re-submitting a similar proposal to start it off all over again at Medemblik. Hence this article.
It has been suggested that we have 3 options.
1. Remove the rule altogether
2. To keep the rules as they are, and somehow adapt the constitution to prevent a challenge to it for X number of years.
3. Adapt the rule somehow in order to provide an improved and optimized system to allow more stable and better all-round performance.
1. Removing the rule altogether.
Common opinion amongst the development experts and designers alike is that removing it altogether would result in anarchy. It would fundamentally change the boat and what it looks like. At present, the requirement for foils in the hulls mean that the boats are built to the maximum permitted beam, with the boards tending to be at their maximum separation, or as near as practicable, to make the best use of the available righting moment. Without this, enterprising designers could come up with all sorts of odd craft, still measuring as an A-Class, but scaring away all but the most avant-garde sailors.
2. To keep the rules as they are, and somehow adapt the constitution to prevent a challenge to it for X number of years.
This may well prove the easiest and least controversial option. Easy to administer, it’s essentially a lawyer’s job to write in a clause to do this. I’m sure a few lawyers sail A-Cats. However, it may also be seen as stifling development if it is applied too restrictively, so needs thinking through to avoid the law of unintended consequences.
3. Adapt the rule somehow in order to provide an improved and optimized system to allow more stable and better all-round performance.
This is the interesting one. If the rule were adapted to allow bottom-inserted foils, but insisted they are still kept within the hulls, then L or V foils could be used.
It has been found from other classes, such as the F20 and Phantom, launching is not an issue, it just requires reshaped trolleys. The stability of an L or V foil is increased over a J or Z, however, design developments over the past year, have shown that current ‘legal’ foils have improved immeasurably in terms of stable flight over the earlier offerings, so maybe this will continue. Others cite lifting a windward foil is an issue, but many top sailors can now manage this without difficulty and devices would be developed in time no doubt.
But the two main issues most frequently mentioned in discussions with designers are; a. the problems caused by the inability to remove a foil from the water, and b. the potential speed /efficiency differences compared to existing J or Z boards.
Who amongst us has not, at some point, quickly needed to remove a foil to clear debris or weed from around it. A bottom-inserted foil obviously prevents this. And it is a major consideration for some sailing areas we use. But possibly even more crucially, as the foil is permanently under the boat, it creates much more drag, particularly in lighter wind speeds when low drag modes are required.
This brings us onto b. There seems to be precious little corroborated data on this so far, and we are mainly relying on hearsay, not hard empirical evidence gathered in a structured scientific manner, but from the few hydrodynamic tests that have been carried out, it is thought that current Z boards are faster overall than current V boards in the same conditions on a full course. Obviously anyone can go fast on any one particular sailing angle, but we need efficient performance at all sailing angles in the real world.
Another option could be to just alter rule 8.1 and allow more foil area under the boat and allowing the tips to be closer. This has shown one designer that without this restriction, upwind foiling would be much easier and in lower wind speeds too.
But these are only a few suggestions out there.
However, in light of all this, we must also be very careful never to push the class into becoming an exclusively airborne one. If the class were to push towards more and more foiling boats, this could lead to foiling sailors being frustrated in lighter winds. Demands would then be made to have minimum wind conditions increased with the result that even more regattas cannot be sailed, and certain fleets, e.g. the South German Lake sailors, where these guys use freakish skills to specialise in those conditions, becoming wiped out. And frequently many other lake sailors also find that foiling is of marginal use in the gusty and shifty conditions found on many of their waters. Also it’s important to never consider those who choose to foil or those who choose not foil to be superior or inferior to anyone else in the A Class fleet. We are all A-Cat sailors after all, need I say more?
What our class needs more than anything is stability for the future to allow designers to know which direction they will be going next year and the year after, and to give sailors confidence to buy a boat that will be competitive for the next few seasons at least. And if the treatment has more damaging side effects than the disease, then stop the treatment? Back to that law of unintended consequences again.
This is all designed to start an intelligent discussion, not a slanging match. What we don’t need is an uninformed, reactionary, shooting from the hip style of discussion favoured and, in some cases, positively encouraged, by a few of the well known internet forums on the scene at the moment. Genuine A-Cat sailors, and potential future sailors, need to know proper facts and theories (used in it’s scientific sense) from actual real-life experts in their field, in order to make a sensible informed decision to protect the class well into the future.
The suggestions here are food for thought and to stimulate you to come up with other creative solutions to the problem we yet have all still to address.
You have the floor.
