Two British boats on show in London

Two 'A' cats on display at the RYA London Dinghy Show.

The World's only dedicated dinghy show took place last weekend at the Alexandra Palace exhibition centre in North London.  Organised by the Royal Yachting Association, several thousand visitors come to this show to see the latest designs and developments, and to buy kit and equipment for the new season.

For some 5 years now, the British 'A' Class Cat Association (BACCA) has been exhibiting, and as a result, has raised the profile of the class amongst UK sailors.  With about 25 or so members back in 2012, they are now at 45 members and this is due, in no small part, to showing the latest boats off at this show as people are keen to see and chat about the newest developements taking place in the class or looking to change.  And with the 2019 'A' Class Worlds at UK Olympic venue in Weymouth, the profile is set to increase even more.

However, this year, there were not one, but two boats on show!  On the BACCA stand, as part of the UK Cat Racing Association's display, was a yet to be sailed 2015 DNA, belonging to Mick Davidson.  This boat featured a new Brewin twin skin tramp and a decksweeper sail.  The beautiful looking ghost grey boat, with it's Forward WIP sponsors graphics, was easily the most popular at cat on the UKCRA stand, with almost constant attention on both days from a very interested public, causing one BACCA member to nearly loose his voice with talking to them so much.

The other boat was an Exploder A15 on display at the Spinlock stand. Spinlock, being one of the Landrover BAR official sponsors, were looking for an eye catching boat for their display that hinted towards their America's Cup theme and an 'A' Class was an obvious choice.  So UK sailmaker and Nacra distributor Grant Piggott.  Grant himself a top UK F-20F and F-18 sailor, who has recently been inducted into the 'A' Class family and is keen to try to fit in sailing this boat as well.  His company, GP Sails, created the decksweeper for the show, and had just tested it a couple of days earlier with great success.

It is great to see these boats now being regularly displayed at big show events.  The German association had started to display at the Dusseldorf show a few years ago too, as did a few others at smaller exhibitions.  These all help to promote and attract new people into a class that many may only have heard about but never actually seen.