A-Class World Championships

The list of the approved entrants to the 2007 A-class WC is really impressive, no doubt the best ever with four past A class Champion (Glenn Ashby, Scott Anderson, Pete Melvin and Mitch Booth, who comes back to sail a major A class event after 13 years), six Olympic medalists (Randy Smyth, Jay and Pease Glaser, Charlie Ogletree, Andrew Landenberger and Goran Marstrom), a world known maxi-multihull skipper (Cam Lewis), a 18’ skiff WC (Howie Hamlin), the current DN WC (Matt Struble), a prominent yacht designer (Mike Drummond) etc. Very seldom a sailing event has gathered such a various and qualified attendance.

Equally impressive is the boats’ roster which includes the first ever A- cat fitted with a wing sail, (according to me Ben Hall’s project is worth at least the same deal of attention paid to Rohan Veal’s flyng Moth), the radical platform designed by Richard Roake for Ian and John Lindhal, (I read rumours about a new type of mainsail to be tailored for it by Randy Smyth), the evolutionary boat developed by Peter Cogan, the new Swedish state-of-the-art wonder (the Marstrom M5) together with the more or less old Flyer Mk2, Bimare/VMI XJ, Tools etc.

I do think

that we all need to cooperate to make all this stuff known to the general sailing public, granting this regatta and the A-class the media coverage it deserves.

This is especially important in the present time when catamarans are in danger to be banned from the Olympic games by ISAF.

Therefore I recommend USACA executives/members and regatta’s organizers to contact ASAP the most important online and paper sailing magazines to have as many articles published as possible PRIOR, DURING and AFTER the event.

I bet that many of you have good relationship with many editors at Sailing World and for sure Halls Spars is well introduced with Seahorse.

A provisional plan could be prepare 2-3 article before the event:

one dedicated to Ben’s winged wonder with photos and a detailed explanation (by Ben) and the other one or two dedicated to the competitors with short interviews to the top guns (editors like interviews).

During the event it is PIVOTAL that a DAILY report is TIMELY mailed to all the on-line magazines with beautiful photos.

At the end all what it is needed will be to send the whole material to the redactions of the printed magazines.

Sorry for this

long and unsolicited message, but my aim is only to help the A-class (and all the catamaran classes) growth

Maurizio